March 09--Donald Trump won the Mississippi primary on Tuesday, extending his hold over the Deep South and advancing his march toward the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump's victory came as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been struggling to overtake him in Bible Belt states where evangelical Christians dominate Republican primaries.
Mississippi was one of four contests held Tuesday, including a primary in Michigan. The results could begin to answer whether Trump has peaked or just slowed a bit in his steady progress toward the nomination.
The day saw nothing like the coast-to-coast balloting of last week's Super Tuesday, when close to 600 delegates were awarded in 11 states. This time, a mere 150 were up for grabs in four contests.
In addition to Mississippi and Michigan, Idaho was holding a Republican primary and Hawaii its GOP caucuses. Polls closed in Mississippi at 5 p.m. Pacific time, and networks projected his victory about half an hour later.
Despite the smaller stakes, the outcome Tuesday was widely seen as a test of Trump and the forces marshaling to stop his political advance.
The voting came after another rough week for the wealthy businessman and first-time candidate who, up to now, has seemed largely impervious to the kinds of political forces affecting most other candidates.
He came under scathing attack from Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain, the party's last two presidential nominees. He turned in a widely disparaged debate performance in Detroit and faced a growing bombardment of negative ads from richly funded organizations determined to deny him the nomination.
For some, none of that mattered.
"I am going to vote for Trump," Joseph Militello, a 70-year-old retiree, said Tuesday morning as he prepared to cast his ballot at City Hall in Grosse Pointe Woods, a close-in suburb of Detroit. "I like the changes he is making. He is not establishment. He is using his own money. He doesn't owe anyone anything."
Michigan was the day's big prize, not only because it offered the largest number of delegates, 59, but because it offered the first test of the candidates' appeal in the industrial Midwest, a traditional fall battleground.
Trump saw decidedly mixed results in balloting last weekend.
He won primaries in Kentucky and Louisiana on Saturday, but the results were much closer than expected, perhaps because the voting was limited to registered Republicans.
Trump had been buoyed in several earlier races by the cross-over support of Democrats and independents allowed to vote in GOP caucuses and primaries; Mississippi and Michigan both held open primaries.
In a sign that may be more worrisome for Trump and his supporters, exit polling has consistently shown Trump enjoying his greatest support among voters who made up their minds early and lagging among late deciders, suggesting he may wear less well over time.
Still, he was the favorite in both Michigan and Mississippi, making the contests -- barring an upset -- once again a race for second place.
Two vastly different electorates turned out for those two contests, the biggest of the day.
In Mississippi, more than three-quarters of the voters described themselves as evangelical Christians and many said they were strongly conservative, according to exit poll interviews.
In Michigan, by contrast, the electorate was more secular and less Republican, with a significant number of independents voting in the GOP contest.
One commonality was anger at the political status quo, a running theme throughout this ornery election season.
Nine in 10 voters in the two states said they were angry at government. Six in 10 in Mississippi and just over half in Michigan said they would like the next president to be someone from "outside the political establishment."
Over the weekend, Cruz posted two victories in Kansas and Maine, bolstering his claim to be Trump's main challenger. He hoped a strong showing Tuesday would hasten the departure of his last two rivals, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, giving Trump and Cruz the one-on-one contest both say they want.
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Kasich made a considerable effort in Michigan, hoping voters might have an affinity for a more moderate conservative and fellow Midwesterner, who has conspicuously avoided the insults and negativity of other candidates.
Greg McCarthy, for one, appreciated Kasich's sobriety.
"I don't know a lot about him," he said before voting for the governor in Grosse Pointe Woods. "But the other three are little kids... How are they going to handle world leaders and Congress if all they do is name-calling?"
At one point, Kasich hoped to win Michigan. Now the Ohio governor merely hoped his finish would be a springboard into next week's primary in his home state, which appears to be a do-or-die contest for Kasich, who has yet to place above second anywhere.
Rubio, who tried to rally the party establishment and emerge as the consensus alternative to Trump, was struggling merely to survive after a series of disappointing finishes Saturday followed by one resounding victory Sunday in Puerto Rico.
A candidate needs 1,237 delegates to clinch the GOP nomination ahead of the party's convention in July. After winning more than half of the first 20 contests, Trump started out Tuesday with 382 delegates. Cruz had 300 and Rubio barely half that number. Kasich had fewer than 40.
The next big test will come Tuesday -- perhaps the decisive day of the GOP contest -- when 358 delegates will be at stake in five states: Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida.
The most important contests will be the winner-take-all primaries in Florida and Ohio, where Rubio and Kasich, respectively, must carry their home states or see their campaigns effectively come to an end.
Follow @markzbarabak and @finneganLAT for national California politics
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