The Pollcast: Breaking down Super Tuesday's results
Host Éric Grenier is joined by Politico's Steven Shepard
The CBC Pollcast, hosted by CBC poll analyst and ThreeHundredEight.com founder Éric Grenier, explores the world of electoral politics, political polls and the trends they reveal.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were the big winners on Super Tuesday, taking most of the 11 states that voted in the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination races.
But those races are not over yet.
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Trump won seven states, ranging from Massachusetts and Vermont in the northeast, to Alabama and Georgia in the south. Senator Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas, as well as Oklahoma and Alaska. Florida Senator Marco Rubio won Minnesota.
These results may look good for Trump, but his advantage is not as significant as it might seem. Trump won only one-third of the popular vote and about 42 per cent of the delegates at stake, putting him just slightly ahead of Cruz, who won 28 per cent of the vote and 38 per cent of the delegates.
Trump only holds a roughly three-to-two margin over Cruz in his tally of pledged delegates so far.
But Trump is well-positioned to win the nomination as long as the field remains divided. With new victories under their belts, Cruz and Rubio have every reason to stay in the race. Ohio Gov. John Kasich put up good numbers in Vermont and Massachusetts, which should encourage him to hold on until his own state votes on March 15.
These candidates may be banking on continuing to keep Trump from winning a majority of delegates, providing them the opportunity to defeat him on the convention floor. But many upcoming states are winner-take-all, meaning that Trump just needs to win by a single vote to take all of the delegates at stake.
And that means Trump may be able to run up the delegate numbers very quickly.
To talk about the state of the race, host Éric Grenier is been joined by Steven Shepard, campaigns editor for U.S.-based website Politico in this week's Pollcast podcast.
Hillary Clinton is already running up the numbers on the Democratic side, winning 60 per cent of the delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday. She lost Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont to Bernie Sanders, but only in Vermont (the state Sanders represents in the Senate) did Clinton lose by a wide margin.
By comparison, Clinton posted big victories elsewhere (including by 59 points in Alabama and 43 points in Georgia) and is comfortably on pace to win a majority of delegates before the Democratic convention this summer.
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You can follow Éric Grenier and Steven Shepard on Twitter.