Former President Donald Trump handily won Missouri’s GOP presidential caucuses Saturday over former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, NBC News projects.
Trump won all 54 of Missouri’s Republican delegates to the party’s presidential convention this summer, which are allocated on a winner-take-most basis at both the statewide and the congressional district-level.
Missouri Republicans switched the party’s presidential nominating system from a primary to caucuses after failing to set up a primary during last year’s legislative session. The Republican majority passed a wide-ranging elections bill that canceled the primary; they then failed to reinstate it when leaders in both parties advocated in favor of doing so.
Democrats will hold a party-run presidential primary here later this month.
In 2016, the last time Missouri hosted a competitive nominating contest, Trump defeated Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, by two-tenths of a percentage point, with then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also taking up a chunk of the vote.
