Top Republican presidential rivals Donald Trump and Ted Cruz scored two victories each on "Super Saturday" with Trump winning in the Louisiana primary and Kentucky caucuses while Cruz emerging as clear winner in the Maine and Kansas caucuses.
The other two Republican candidates—Marco Rubio and John Kasich—fared badly, bolstering Cruz's argument that he is the main alternative to Trump for the party's presidential nomination, Newsmax reported.
Indeed, Cruz scooped more delegates than Trump in Saturday's races, getting 64 delegates from Kansas and Maine while Trump got 49 delegates from Kentucky and Louisiana. Trump still leads in the total delegate count with 378 to Cruz's 295. Rubio is far behind at 123 while Kasich only has 34, according to the New York Times.
A candidate has to get 1,237 delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination outright.
In the Democratic race, front-runner Hillary Clinton scored a huge primary victory in delegate-rich Louisiana, winning 71 percent of the vote to Bernie Sanders' 23 percent. As a result, Clinton got 55 new delegates, raising her total to 1,121.
Sanders defeated Clinton in two states—Kansas and Nebraska—but the twin victories only netted him 47 new delegates, increasing his total to 479.
A candidate needs to get 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic presidential nomination outright.
Cruz defeated Trump in Kansas, getting 48 percent of the votes to the billionaire's 23 percent.
The Texas senator also defeated Trump in Maine, winning 46 percent to Trump's 33 percent.
Trump defeated Cruz in Kentucky, winning 36 percent to the Texas senator's 32 percent.
The real estate mogul also defeated Cruz in Louisiana, 42 percent to his rival's 38 percent.
Trump had won 10 of the first 15 contests before Saturday to emerge as the clear Republican front-runner.
However, Cruz contended that his victories on Saturday and his wins in four other states earlier show that he can beat Trump in a head-to-head fight.
"What we saw on Super Tuesday is what we're seeing today, which is that there is only one candidate who can and has beaten Donald Trump repeatedly," Cruz said in a speech on Saturday in Boise, Idaho. "We're going to win the nomination."
Trump also relished the thought of taking Cruz one-on-one. "I would love to take on Ted one-on-one," he said as he also called on Rubio to drop out of the race.
Rubio's distant third-place finish in Kansas, where he only got 17 percent of the votes, was particularly hard to swallow since he held three rallies there on Friday and had the backing of Governor Sam Brownback. It was worse in Maine where Rubio placed fourth and last, getting only 8 percent of the votes.
Rubio's only win came in the March 1 Minnesota caucuses. However, the Florida senator told reporters that he's prepared for a protracted nomination fight and that he "feels good" about the calendar from Saturday onward.
Meanwhile, Kasich said he hopes for a strong showing in Michigan, a state neighboring Ohio, where he is the sitting governor. Kasich has said he'll drop out of the race if he loses in Ohio but will be ready for a convention fight if he wins.
