Marco Rubio won’t go home completely empty-handed from the Super Tuesday contests. He is now projected to capture the Minnesota primary, his first top finish in the presidential sweepstakes so far.
That should be something of a relief for the Rubio camp, which is in the midst of an otherwise rough night for their candidate. Donald Trump once again dominated the evening, capturing at least six states across the map. And Ted Cruz picked up his second and third wins of the primary so far, taking his home state of Texas and Oklahoma just to the north.
Rubio’s Minnesota finish will allow his campaign, at long last, to call him a winner. The freshman Florida senator is in dire need of a spark to help him continue making the case to party leaders, donors, and anti-Trump voters that he remains the best hope to stop the billionaire businessman from romping to the nomination.
Rubio, in a CNN interview Tuesday night, also pointed to the delegates he stands to gain from placing in several other Super Tuesday contests, all of which distribute their delegates on a proportional basis. But Trump only padded his lead to the magic number of 1,237 delegates, the threshold needed to clinch the GOP nod.