In
the four Republican primaries and caucuses held
yesterday, Idaho was the only state that prevented
presidential candidate Donald Trump from claiming a
clean sweep of the days' voting. Idaho voters instead
gave a victory to Ted Cruz, who garnered 45% of Idaho's
votes, well ahead of Mr. Trump's second place finish at
28%.Mr. Trump won the remaining three of yesterday's Republican races, which included primary elections in Michigan and Mississippi, and caucuses in Hawaii.
The other active Republican candidates, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, won 16% and 7.5% of Idaho's primary votes respectively.
In Boundary County, results generally reflected the Idaho statewide numbers, Mr. Cruz in first place with 901 votes (45%), Mr. Trump second with 788 votees (40%), Mr. Rubio third with 131 votes (6.5%), and Mr. Kasich with 107 votes (5%). Boundary County's biggest vote-getter outside of the four remaining active candidates was Ben Carson, who received 39 votes.
Statewide, Ted Cruz won victories in 32 of Idaho's 44 counties, with Donald Trump winning in 12 counties.
Boundary County voter turnout for the Presidential Primary was 1,993 voters out of 5,508 voters registered, for 36%.
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Idaho's 32 delegates to July's Republican National Convention will be awarded based upon the votes cast in yesterday's primary. State GOP officials have indicated that allocation of the delegates will be made later today. To receive any of Idaho's delegates, a candidate had to receive at least 20% of the votes in the primary. Based on vote totals, only Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, the only candidates to receive more than 20% of the vote, will be receiving those Idaho delegates.
The Idaho Constitution Party Primary was also held yesterday. In that race, Scott Copeland of Texas won the Idaho statewide race, with 245 votes compared to second place J.R. Myers' 137 votes. Locally, however, Mr. Myers handily defeated Mr. Copeland, getting twice the number of votes, 2 votes to 1.
Yesterday's election was the first time Boundary County voted with its new electronic vote counting machines. Poll workers with whom we spoke yesterday indicated they were very happy with how the new devices were working, and were happy also that they would not be staying up most of the night counting votes.
Boundary County Clerk Glenda Poston was also pleased with the new machines. "The new electronic voting tabulators worked just great," she said. "Our county was the first in the north to have our election results tabulated and submitted to the state."
Next up for Idaho in the presidential races this year will be the statewide Democratic Party caucuses on March 22. Boundary County Democrats will be participating in that process.
Voting summaries for yesterday's Presidential Primary are listed in the following table for Boundary Couny and Idaho statewide results. Also included are results from the other states holding primary elections and caucuses yesterday, Michigan, Mississippi, and Hawaii.