Oklahoma Win for Cruz Reveals a Lot About Race with Trump

By Steven Deace

The quiet big story tonight going forward is Oklahoma, because it’s the first big delegate state that is a CLOSED PRIMARY. Meaning the waves of independent and Democrat cross-over voters that have elevated Trump so many other places are not available to him.

So only Republicans can vote and what happens? TRUMP LOSES, and he loses despite the fact Rubio still placed a strong third there further splintering the non-Trump vote.

Here’s another reason that’s big — most of the contests going forward are also CLOSED CONTESTS. In fact, the Real Clear Politics polling average had Trump winning Oklahoma by 11 points, but Cruz won the state instead. In fact, so far tonight Trump is under-performing his polling in several states (like he was projected to win VA by 15 points and won by half that).

Conclusion: Trump can be beaten if the resources are spent to expose him, and Rubio’s wing of the party unites behind Cruz in time to win more of these closed contests. Unless Rubio can beat Trump in winner-take-all Florida to help us, which is a big if looking at polling, an argument could be made Rubio doesn’t serve a constructive purpose remaining in the race (pending tonight’s final delegate count).

Note: Prior to today, only Iowa and Nevada had closed primaries.

Update (1:00 AM PST): Ted Cruz has won Alaska which is also a closed primary.