With primaries and caucuses in Arizona, Utah, and American Samoa, 107 delegates are up for grabs in the GOP race on Tuesday.
In two of the three races, delegates are allotted on a winner-take-all or winner-take-most basis, likely denying Ohio Governor John Kasich any delegates in the Tuesday contests.
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who is looking to secure the 1,237 delegates necessary to avoid a contested convention, needs a win in winner-take-all Arizona. Picking up all of Arizona’s 58 delegates would help keep the New York billionaire on track to secure the nomination despite a predicted third-place showing in Utah.
The Utah caucus, with 40 delegates, is a closed vote, barring Trump-supporting conservative Democrats and independents from participating.
To date, Western states have been far less kind to the real estate mogul than the rest of the country. Of the six western states in the contiguous United States to hold votes thus far, five have gone to Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
The latest poll in Utah shows Cruz winning the state with 53%, which would hand him all of the state’s 40 delegates. Trump, on the other hand, is barely in the double digits, coming in at a distant third with 11%.
Things are brighter for Trump, however, in Utah’s neighbor to the south, Arizona. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Trump leads the field with 38%, compared to 25% for Cruz and 14% for Kasich.
On the Democratic side, 149 delegates are in play on Tuesday in contests in Idaho, Utah, and Arizona.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is likely to sweep Idaho, which has few minority voters upon whom former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has relied upon heavily in her campaign.
Sanders also leads Clinton in the latest Utah poll, but his 8-point lead is not insurmountable. Polls suggest a big Clinton win in Arizona, where Hispanics make up nearly a third of the population and will likely constitute nearly half of Democratic primary voters.