Donald Trump won a majority of unbound delegates from Pennsylvania, overtaking Ted Cruz in the race for support from the free agent delegates.
According to a survey by ABC News, 39 of Pennsylvania’s 54 unbound delegates plan to vote for Trump on the first convention ballot. 23 of those said they would support Trump, while 16 said they would commit to vote for the winner of their district, which ended up being Trump.
Two Pennsylvania delegates told ABC they would support Texas Sen. Cruz, and seven others are uncommitted.
This narrows the margin between Trump and Cruz among unbound delegates, and brings Trump closer to the possibility of sewing up the nomination on the first ballot. According to a TIME analysis conducted before Pennsylvania’s primary, 26 of the other 63 unbound delegates are either committed to support Cruz, lean towards supporting Cruz or refuse to support Trump on the first ballot.
But now with the results from Pennsylvania, Cruz has the support of 27 of the 117 unbound delegates (plus one who may not support Cruz but refuses to support Trump), while Trump has 40: 39 from Pennsylvania, and one from North Dakota. Another delegate from American Samoa is Trump’s local campaign chair, but he declined to confirm to TIME that he will support Trump on the first ballot.
Only about 5% of the 2,472 delegates to the convention are unbound, and they could become the most important Republicans in the nation if Trump arrives at the convention just short of the 1,237 bound delegates he needs to lock up the nomination on the first ballot. To achieve that, Trump will need to win 50% of all remaining delegates (Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are both mathematically unable to do so). But if he comes in just shy, the results from Pennsylvania Tuesday night bring Trump 39 steps closer to an outright victory.
This article was originally published on Time.com.
