Senator Ted Cruz handily defeated Republican frontrunner Donald Trump late Tuesday in Utah's presidential caucuses, putting up a spirited challenge against the brash billionaire as they battle for their party's presidential nomination.
With a quarter of precincts reporting, NBC and CNN projected Cruz the winner with about 70 percent of the vote, with Ohio Governor John Kasich at 16 percent and Trump at 13 percent.
Trump easily won the state of Arizona earlier Tuesday.
Cruz attracted support among voters who don’t want to see Trump prevail, and he got a boost from Romney, who backed the senator on Friday and made a pre-recorded call for him this week, Davis said. Utah Governor Gary Herbert also said on Monday he would vote for Cruz, calling him a “consistent conservative” who should win all of the state’s delegates.
Trump isn’t popular in Utah, where two-thirds of residents are Mormons and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took the unusual step last year of issuing a statement supporting religious pluralism after Trump vowed to bar Muslims from entering the country, Davis said.
At a rally in Salt Lake City last week, Trump praised the intelligence of members of the Mormon faith before joking of Romney, "Are you sure he’s a Mormon? Are we sure?"
Kasich has held campaign events in Utah and run television ads seeking to earn delegates there as part of his plan to prevail at a contested party convention on grounds that he’s best able to win the general election.
While Kasich has the backing of Mike Leavitt, the former Utah governor and Cabinet official in George W. Bush’s administration, Romney and Cruz are telling voters that a vote for Kasich is essentially a vote for Trump.
The Ohio governor was a distant third in delegates entering Tuesday’s voting with 143, behind Cruz with 424 and Trump with 680, according to an Associated Press delegate tally.
Material from Bloomberg News and AFP was used in this report.
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