9:15 p.m. Bernie Sanders has won Oklahoma — denying Hillary Clinton a Southern sweep, depending on your definition of Southern.
Sanders worked Oklahoma late, and the whiter electorate and quirky nature of the state played to his strengths. He also stepped up his criticism of the natural gas “fracking” industry, which has been blamed in some quarters for earthquakes in Oklahoma.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks to members of the media before a campaign appearance, Monday, Feb. 29, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)
9:03 p.m. The Ted Cruz campaign will continue, as Cruz scored a convincing win in his home state of Texas, called as the polls closed, and has been projected the winner of neighboring Oklahoma.
The Texas win was mostly expected, based on polls, but Oklahoma is big for Cruz — as it was a wide open contest.
Marco Rubio’s night is fast turning rough: He was denied a win in Virginia, and now Cruz has two more states on the board and ammunition to say he is the only one who can take down Trump.
Hillary Clinton also won handily in Texas, according to AP and network projections, continuing her Southern sweep.
8:58 p.m. Donald Trump has won Virginia, according to AP projections, a blow to Marco Rubio’s upset hopes there.
The demographics in Virginia set up better for Rubio than any other Southern state, and he did well in key pockets, but Trump ran up huge margins in the southside and held his own in veteran-heavy Hampton Roads.
But the scapegoat for Rubio fans has to be John Kasich. The Ohio governor was not a threat here, but campaigned hard in the final days in Virginia in order to deny Rubio a win so he could claim the establishment mantle going forward.
Kasich is pulling in at this point about 9 percent of the vote — well more than the 4 percent gap separating Trump and Rubio, and you’d have to think that a lot of those Kasich voters would have swung Rubio’s way.
In inner D.C. suburbs Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria, Kasich pulled in about 20 percent of the vote — better than Trump — and kept Rubio from piling up the margins he needed.
8:35 p.m. Hillary Clinton has won Arkansas, another Southern victory for the state’s former first lady. Clinton has won every Southern state tonight, but is in a battle with Bernie Sanders in Oklahoma.
Arkansas has 32 delegates at stake for Democrats and 40 for Republicans. The race on the GOP side was too close to call as the polls closed. All three top candidates worked the Land of the Razorbacks hard in the final days.
8:30 p.m. The Virginia Republican race is shaping up as the early showdown of the night between Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, will have to hope for big numbers in Northern Virginia as the night goes on to pull off the upset.
A deeper look at the results by congressional district is revealing — and in one case quite surprising. The district votes do not matter for delegate purposes, as the 49 delegates will be divvied up proportionally based on the statewide vote alone. But they do show how the candidates fare across Virginia’s political geography.
As one would expect, Trump does better in the rural districts, with his best numbers coming in the far southwestern Ninth District. But Rubio is beating Trump in one surprising place — the Seventh District, which sits in the middle of the state and includes the Richmond suburbs. That’s notable because the Seventh was the scene of the biggest anti-establishment primary result of 2014, when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fell to Dave Brat.
Brat endorsed Ted Cruz for president, but Cruz remains mired in a distant third in the district.
8:03 p.m. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each picked up two more wins in the South, with the Associated Press immediately calling Alabama and Tennessee for the business mogul and the former Secretary of State as the polls closed there.
In addition, AP called Massachusetts for Trump.
That makes Trump four-for-four so far — with results in Vermont and Virginia still too close to call.
Clinton has won four-of-five, with Bernie Sanders winning his home state of Vermont and Massachusetts not yet called.
Republicans have 50 delegates up for grabs tonight in Alabama, while Democrats have 53. In Tennessee, there are 72 Democratic delegates to be won and 58 on the Republican side.
7:06 p.m. The Associated Press immediately called Virginia for Hillary Clinton as the polls closed, while her rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, took his home state of Vermont as expected.
Virginia’s 95 delegates are distributed proportionally by statewide vote. An immediate AP call suggests that she’s gonna win the lion’s share there. Vermont has 16 delegates up for grabs tonight.
Meanwhile on the Republican side, the lack of an immediate call means that exit polls did not show a Donald Trump romp in Virginia, and things could get interesting there for Marco Rubio.
This post will be updated throughout the night with results from outside Georgia, with a focus on the South. Here’s a guide on what to watch as the returns flow in.
