Bernie Sanders wins Maine caucuses; Marco Rubio wins Puerto Rico primary

Anoth­er day, anoth­er set of pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing caucuses.

Today, Maine Democ­rats held their 2016 cau­cus­es, while Puer­to Rico Repub­li­cans went to the polls to cast bal­lots in that ter­ri­to­ry’s pri­ma­ry. (Res­i­dents of ter­ri­to­ries don’t get a say in which per­son gets elect­ed as Pres­i­dent, but they do get to par­tic­i­pate in the selec­tion of the nom­i­nees, thanks to par­ty rules.)

In Maine, Bernie Sanders cleaned up, pre­vail­ing eas­i­ly over Hillary Clin­ton. Mar­co Rubio, mean­while, got his first real win of the nom­i­nat­ing sea­son, tak­ing about three quar­ters of the vote in Puer­to Rico’s pri­ma­ry. Thir­ty del­e­gates are at stake in Maine and twen­ty-three are up for grabs in Puer­to Rico.

Here are the cur­rent results in Maine:

Bernie’s vic­to­ry in Maine means he can now add anoth­er state to his vic­to­ry col­umn, for a total of eight. He won three states this week­end (all were cau­cus states), while Hillary Clin­ton sailed to vic­to­ry in the Louisiana Demo­c­ra­t­ic primary.

Sanders had a good week­end, but Clin­ton may well return to her win­ning ways on Tues­day in the Michi­gan and Mis­sis­sip­pi pri­maries. The Sanders camp is hop­ing to be com­pet­i­tive in Michi­gan. It’s like­ly that Clin­ton will do very well in Mis­sis­sip­pi, which bor­ders Louisiana and Alaba­ma, where she has already trounced Sanders.

Sanders’ vic­to­ries this week­end give him a nice boost ahead of poten­tial loss­es on Tues­day. Should Clin­ton beat him, he will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to bounce back in the North­ern Mar­i­anas Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus­es next week­end, where eleven del­e­gates will be at stake. After that, it’s on to “Mini Tuesday”.

Sanders will def­i­nite­ly still be a can­di­date at the end of March, when Democ­rats in Wash­ing­ton State hold their cau­cus­es. Alas­ka and Hawaii Democ­rats will (not coin­ci­den­tal­ly) be cau­cus­ing on the same day — Sat­ur­day, March 26th.

Now, here are the results in Puer­to Rico, with 25% reporting:

It cer­tain­ly looks like Mar­co Rubio is going to end the week­end with a much-need­ed win. Puer­to Rico may be a ter­ri­to­ry, but that hard­ly means it’s not impor­tant. In fact, Puer­to Rico has more del­e­gates than the state of Hawaii, which will hold its Repub­li­can cau­cus­es this com­ing Tues­day. (19 del­e­gates are at stake.)

Still, Rubio’s path is a steep one. Ted Cruz was the top choice of Repub­li­cans in Kansas and Maine in yes­ter­day’s Repub­li­can cau­cus­es… not him. Cruz has won more states than either of Don­ald Trump’s two oth­er rivals.

But unfor­tu­nate­ly for Cruz, nei­ther Rubio nor John Kasich are heed­ing his calls to drop out and sup­port him… which just goes to show that his influ­ence in key cir­cles in the par­ty pales in com­par­i­son to his pop­u­lar­i­ty with the base.

Cruz can argue that it’s a two-man race between him­self and Don­ald Trump. But Rubio and Kaisch’s home states will be vot­ing a week from this Tues­day. Nei­ther man is going to leave the race pri­or to com­pet­ing there. If Rubio los­es Flori­da to Trump, it’s hard to see how he con­tin­ues on.

Kasich, mean­while, can’t afford to lose Ohio, as he has yet to win a sin­gle state. Even Rubio has got­ten over that sym­bol­ic hur­dle. Kasich is only still in the race because he came in sec­ond in New Hamp­shire. But he still lost that state to Trump.