Cruz wins close Alaska contest

Ted Cruz had a small lead over Donald Trump in Alaska early Wednesday morning when The Associated Press named him the winner of the final Super Tuesday contest. 

The Texas senator had 7,973 votes to Trump’s 7,346 votes with 100 percent of the vote tallied, according to the AP.

Marco Rubio was running a distant third, with 15 percent, followed by Ben Carson, with 11 percent, and John Kasich’s 4 percent. 

The win in Alaska gives Cruz a Super Tuesday trifecta and serves as another front for him to claim victory against Trump, despite the fact that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed the real estate mogul.

But it likely won’t make a significant difference in the race for delegates, as the AP currently estimates that Cruz will walk away with 12 delegates and Trump with 11 from the state. 

Cruz won two states on Super Tuesday to Trump’s seven. Trump’s victories will allow him to walk away with an increased delegate lead.  

Alaska is typically the last to finalize results, thanks to its own time zone that’s later than the U.S. Pacific Time Zone. And because the state is largely rural, there’s minimal polling to predict the winner ahead of time. 

In the only poll from 2016, Trump led Cruz by 4 percent, with everyone else in single digits. 

This report was updated at 7:12 a.m.