The 2016 Mississippi Republican presidential primary took place in
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
on March 8, 2016, ahead of the
presidential election that November. The Democrats held
their Mississippi primary on the same day.
Mississippi's 40 Republican delegates were contested.
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
won the primary, receiving 47.24% of the vote, while
Ted Cruz
Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from ...
came in second, with 36.12% of the vote. Trump received 25 of the state's delegates, while Cruz received the remaining 15.
The state of the campaign
Trump had already become the Republican front-runner before the Mississippi primary. He was favored to win Mississippi partly because he had already done well in Southern states' primaries, including
Alabama's, which he won with 43.4% of the vote on
Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday is the United States presidential primary election day in February or March when the greatest number of U.S. states hold primary elections and caucuses. Approximately one-third of all delegates to the presidential nominating co ...
.
Opinion polling
A poll of 995 likely Republican Mississippi voters, conducted on February 29, 2016 by
Magellan Strategies
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...
, gave Trump 41% of the vote, 24% more than second-place Cruz.
Results
Analysis
Trump's double-digit victory in Mississippi was seen as solidifying his status as the Republican front-runner, shortly after his disappointing performance in the
Louisiana primary
The "Louisiana primary" is the common term for top-two runoff voting system where all candidates for the same office appear together on the ballot in the general election, and if none win a Majority, simple majority, a runoff or second round el ...
. Another unusual aspect of the Mississippi primary results was
Marco Rubio
Marco Antonio Rubio (born May 28, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida Hous ...
's exceptionally poor showing: Rubio came in fourth despite having finished second in several other primaries in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
. Overall, Trump's victory was part of his generally strong performance in the South, in which, as a whole, he performed better than either
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...
in 2008 or
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...
in 2012.
[
Exit polls showed that Trump beat Cruz in virtually every demographic group. They also showed that Trump got an especially large share of the vote among Mississippi voters looking for a candidate who "tells it like it is". Trump also won among white ]evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
s, the voters who Cruz had hoped would form his coalition.
References
External links
Exit poll results
from CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
{{U.S. presidential primaries
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
Republican primary
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...