GOP front-runner Donald Trump handily won Alabama on Super Tuesday, besting his two closest competitors, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz.
The media called Alabama just moments after polls closed in the state, a sign Trump is expected to easily carry the state based on exit polling.
Under the state’s rules, only candidates who receive at least 20 percent of the popular vote receive any delegates. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote either statewide or in a particular district, he gets all the delegates for that area.
Trump’s win comes just days after Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., endorsed the businessman and reality TV star at a rally in Madison, Ala., where Trump claimed the crowd numbered 30,000 with thousands more waiting to get in.
“I told Donald Trump this isn’t a campaign,” Sessions said. “This is a movement.”
Rubio’s endorsements from 31 elected state officials in Alabama were not enough to earn him a victory.
Coming into the night, polls showed Trump with a sizable lead in Alabama. A Monmouth University poll released Monday showed 42 percent of likely GOP primary voters favoring Trump, compared to just 19 percent for Rubio and 16 percent for Cruz.
