Mormons, evangelicals come through for Cruz

David Wasserman writes in Five Thirty Eight,

Tonight’s likely result of a split verdict — Trump winning Arizona and Cruz stomping him in Utah — would seem to suggest a close fight between the two from here on out. But the problem for Cruz is the same one we’ve been talking about for over a month: There just aren’t a ton of great states for him later in the calendar. Almost every state with a high share of evangelical Protestants have already voted, and the two states with the highest shares of Mormons — Trump’s worst group by a mile — will have already voted after tonight (Idaho and Utah).

In fact, between now and June, the only states left where more than 3-in-10 residents are either evangelical Protestants or Mormons are Indiana (32 percent), Montana (32 percent), Oregon (33 percent) and West Virginia (41 percent). Together, these states account for just 146 of the 905 delegates at stake in remaining contests. And, West Virginia is probably Trump’s prototypical state, not Cruz’s. To me, these are the most damning statistics when it comes to Cruz’s bid to prevent Trump from winning 1,237 delegates.