So far, not many surprises in the Republican presidential primary tonight. Maybe someone could argue that Trump is under-performing his polling numbers in some states – he’s currently at 71 percent in Maine’s GOP primary, and the UNH poll had Trump at 77 percent in Maine in mid-February – but most of these states haven’t had a lot of polling in recent weeks. And there are exceptions; in Virginia, the Roanoke College poll indicated a pretty close race statewide, with Trump at 51 percent and Haley at 43 percent. As of this writing, Trump is at 63 percent statewide in Virginia.
There are times when a second-place candidate can gripe that the winner-take-all rules are unfair, but in most of these states, Trump is ahead by such a wide margin – as of this writing, he’s got more than three-quarters of the vote in Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas — it’s hard to argue with a straight face that Haley is somehow unfairly being denied delegates she deserves.
To the extent the night is offering any drama, it’s in Vermont, of all places, where Haley appears to have a genuine shot at winning.