This post has been updated.
CNN and the Associated Press are projecting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) the winner of the Kansas Republican caucuses Saturday.
With 61 percent of the vote counted, Cruz had garnered 51.1 percent of the vote, with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump at 24 percent.
Speaking at a watch party in Idaho, Cruz touted the victory as a critical win over Trump and cast himself as the only candidate left standing who can beat both Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“If Donald Trump is the nominee, we lose to Hillary Clinton, we lose the Senate, we lose the Supreme Court for a generation,” Cruz told the crowd.
He went on to say: “The scream you hear, the howl that comes from Washington D.C. is utter terror at what we the people are doing together.”
The Texas senator also won the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday, getting 40 percent of the vote to Sen. Marco Rubio’s 30 percent. Trump, who still maintains a wide lead in national polls, got just 15 percent of the vote in the straw poll.
