Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, finished in second place in Tuesday’s Texas primary, gaining only 27 percent of the vote compared with Sen. Ted Cruz’s 44 percent home-state win.
But within those overall numbers, there lurks another nugget of electoral truth: Of the five counties won by Trump, four were among the 13 counties along the Mexican border, where Trump has proposed building a wall (which he says would be paid for by Mexico).
Moreover, Trump’s share of the vote in almost every border county was higher than his statewide average. There were only two exceptions: Starr County, where just 121 votes were cast, and El Paso County, where Trump came in third behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
(c) 2016, Bloomberg ยท Andre Tartar
