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.
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.
Missouri awards 54 Republican delegates to the party’s presidential convention this summer on a winner-take-most basis and are determined at both the statewide and the congressional district-level.
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.
