Ted Cruz Nabs His Home State Delegates

On Tuesday night, the GOP primaries played out more or less how everybody thought they would ― big wins for Trump, and a rough night for everyone else. The only other Republican who actually accomplished anything decisive was Texas senator Ted Cruz, who pulled out a pair of wins in Oklahoma and his home state of Texas. Texas was undoubtedly the big prize, seeing as a loss there would've been devastating, and it's an enormous, delegate-rich state. So, how many delegates did Ted Cruz win in Texas?

As usual, the news networks projecting a winner happens well before final numbers are in, and as such it can't always be immediately said who walks out with what number of delegates ― even after the state was called for Cruz, there was still a large percentage of the vote yet to be counted. The basic upshot, however, is this: the state of Texas awards delegates proportionally, unless one candidate notches more than 50 percent of the vote. There's also a minimum to get any delegates ― you have to surpass 20 percent of the vote.

That's the basic, crucial arithmetic the Cruz campaign is staring down. If they manage to crack 50 percent statewide, they'd walk away with the state's full haul of 47 at-large delegates. But as it stands now, that's looking deeply unlikely, meaning they'll be divvied up between him and his eligible rivals (at this point, it seems, just him and Trump).

As it stands now, according to The New York Times' excellent Super Tuesday coverage, Cruz is winning at least 32 delegates, with Donald Trump bringing up the rear at 14. Again, these are early numbers based on just 7 percent of the vote ― as the totals increase, the delegate count will rise as well.