YESTERDAY'S PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  The results were split.  Both Donald Trump, on the GOP side, and Hillary Clinton, on the other side, won strong victories in Arizona, which is a voting primary.

But Bernie Sanders wiped Hillary out in the Utah and Idaho caucuses.  And Ted Cruz defeated Trump in Utah as well.  There were no GOP caucuses in Idaho.  From Fox: 

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton padded their delegate totals with convincing wins in the valuable Arizona primary Tuesday night – but their respective rivals, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders, kept the race alive with victories in the Utah and Idaho caucuses.

The Associated Press projected Sanders and Cruz the winners of the Utah contest early Wednesday morning. Idaho’s Democratic-only caucuses were called for Sanders.

Though Arizona was the biggest prize on the map in Tuesday's Western contests, Sanders and Cruz won their states by huge, double-digit margins. Cruz took all of Utah's delegates by finishing with more than 50 percent of the vote.

Together, the Western contests seemed to leave the race in a familiar place: with the front-runners building their tallies and trying to shift to a general election mindset, yet unable to shake underdog rivals buoyed by their own victories and finding reason to press on.

With Sanders' two wins, he roughly split Tuesday's delegate haul with Clinton. And Cruz’s victory in Utah indeed slows Trump’s march toward the nomination on the GOP side.

COMMENT:  I think it's significant that Cruz's and Sanders's victories came in caucuses.  The frontrunners seem to do very well in a straightforward primary election, but caucuses bring out the challengers' true believers.  I have no idea why.

I regard Sanders as the most dangerous candidate in the race.  He is personable, and very decent, but has some of the worst ideas I've ever seen in a major candidate, particularly on national defense.  Some observers say he's the future of the Democratic Party, but I'm not so sure.  First of all, he's 74.  Second, his personal qualities can't easily be duplicated in other candidates.  Third, his appeal is mostly to the young, but there are lots of un-young voters out there.

Clinton and Trump still lead their respective fields.  But few things are predictable in this race.  Clinton could face an FBI problem.  And Trump does seem to be showing signs of weakness, at least for now. 

Cruz was endorsed yesterday by Jeb Bush.  In terms of votes, that may not mean much.  But the endorsement could open Bush's donor network to the Cruz campaign. 

March 23, 2016