Ted Cruz Got Nowhere In New York

Ted Cruz may not like New York values, but New Yorkers don't seem to like Cruz's values either. On Tuesday, the Texas senator lost the New York Republican primary, which wasn't really surprising considering frontrunner Donald Trump's home turf advantage and Cruz's not-so-positive dig at "New York values" in an earlier Republican debate. In total, Cruz won zero delegates in New York, leaving him little chance of catching up to the outspoken business tycoon that he trails in the Republican race for the White House.

Cruz actually came in third in New York's primary, falling far short of Trump and short enough of Ohio Gov. John Kasich. New York has been a focus of the presidential campaigns lately thanks to its sizable impact on the delegate count: The state had 95 Republican delegates up for grabs in Tuesday's primary. The only state that remains on the Republican primary calendar with more delegates than New York is California, which will allocate its 172 delegates in early June. In failing to pick up delegates in the Empire State, Cruz didn't do nearly enough to up his chances of winning the nomination outright ahead of a contested convention. To be fair, those chances were slim to begin with, but Cruz's performance in New York all but wiped an outright win off the table for Cruz.

Losing New York probably wasn't much of a shock to the Cruz camp. According to Real Clear Politics, Trump had about a 30-point lead in the latest polls out of New York, with Kasich edging Cruz out for second place. In fact, Cruz wasn't even in New York when the results came out. Instead, he headed to Pennsylvania. Republican voters in that state will cast their ballots next Tuesday, and 71 delegates are up for grabs. Cruz probably has a much better chance of performing well in Pennsylvania than he fared in New York.

Although his loss probably wasn't surprising, it certainly was damaging. Cruz needed to win delegates in the Empire State in order to maintain his chances of securing the nomination. Now that he is leaving New York with no additional delegates, he can't mathematically reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright. In other words, the only way for Cruz to become the GOP's nominee is through a contested convention. In order for that contested convention to occur, though, he needs to stay in the race and continue to win delegates, so that Trump also doesn't reach the 1,237-delegate threshold.

Ultimately, Cruz's performance in the New York primary was just about as rocky as his concession speech following Tuesday's results. He wound up with no more delegates than he entered New York with, and he had to watch Trump inch that much closer to an outright nomination. I think it's safe to say that he's probably regretting that "New York values" comment by now.