Donald Trump has added Mississippi to his growing list of primary wins, beating Texas Senator Ted Cruz to take the state.
Fox News called the state for the real estate mogul at around 8:30 PM.
Mississippi is a winner take all state only if the final vote count gives the winner 50 percent plus of the total vote. Otherwise the state will award its 40 delegates proportionately.
On the eve of Tuesday’s primary contests, Trump was the delegate leader with 384 delegates, with Cruz closely behind at 300. Meanwhile Marco Rubio came in with a distant 151, while John Kasich came in with a low with 37 delegates.
Of interest is that more than three-quarters of Mississippi’s electorate are born-again or evangelical Christians. The win for Trump comes as a surprise to many who imagined that Rubio or Cruz would be more likely to take the vote of religious Christians.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com