What can we learn from yesterday's voting?

At Conservative Review Daniel Horowitz makes eight observations about yesterday's voting patterns.

Last night’s results consummate the narrative we’ve been observing since Super Tuesday: Cruz is surging and can defeat Donald Trump for the nomination, but if Marco Rubio and John Kasich do not exit the race, Trump will win.

...Overall, Cruz will net more delegates over Trump from last night. My best estimate (subject to change) is Cruz 71, Trump 60, Rubio 14, Kasich 10. Cruz has now garnered roughly 300 delegates, about 80 less than Trump. - See more at:

Here are the 8 key outcomes:

Cruz is surging: Cruz has demonstrated that he can beat Trump even with a crowded field.

Rubio/Kasich playing spoiler: It’s self-evident that had Kasich or Rubio been out of the race, Cruz would have easily won Kentucky. Trump has siphoned off much of Cruz’s conservative base in rural counties and Cruz needs the full support of urban and suburban Republicans to overcome Trump. As long as a more moderate candidate is in the race, many of these voters will not go with Cruz. But once they are left with a choice between the two, they would have to get behind Cruz.

Rubio is out of luck: Rubio failed to win 20% in a single state last night.

Kasich is the new Rubio: Across the map, Kasich is beginning to supplant Rubio as the candidate of choice for more moderate Republican voters. Also, he is likely to win his home state while Rubio will probably lose his home state of Florida.

Closed caucuses/Primaries matter: All four contests last night were closed to non-Republican members. It is quite evident that Donald Trump does much better with cross-over voters but as the primaries continue, most of the remaining contests are closed. This should help Cruz going forward.

Early voting is a killer: Donald Trump has been garnering all the media attention and has led the entire race. Thus, most of the early voting benefits him. He crushed Cruz 2-1 in early voting in Louisiana but Cruz won election day voting. This is yet another demonstration of why early voting is fundamentally unfair. In this case, many voters cast ballots before the Cruz surge and debate performance. It also shows that headed forward, Cruz is in good shape to continue winning states that are commencing voting after the debate. It will be interesting to see if Cruz could win election day voting in the neighboring state, Mississippi, on Tuesday, where there is no early voting. There is no early voting in the other three contests that day either: Hawaii, Idaho, and Michigan.

RNC Rule 40: In order for a candidate to be placed into nomination at the GOP convention, a candidate must win the majority of delegates in at least eight states. After last night’s majority wins in Kansas and Maine, Cruz now has three states under his belt. Trump already won four states with a majority of the delegates prior to last night’s contests.

Cruz can beat Trump: The biggest takeaway from Saturday is that were the other candidates to drop out, Cruz can easily win in most of the remaining states. Sure, Kasich can win his home state of Ohio, but he can never catch Donald Trump in the delegate count. Were he to drop out, Cruz would have an excellent shot at winning those winner-take-all delegates in Ohio. This week we will find out if those declaring #TrumpNever are good to their word or if they really hate Cruz just as much as Trump.

Read more here.