Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and New York businessman Donald Trump are tied in Alaska's Republican delegate count after Florida Sen. Marco Rubio dropped out of the presidential race earlier this month, state party officials said.
Cruz beat Trump by about three percentage points in the Alaska Republican Party's presidential preference poll on Super Tuesday. But a mathematical re-calculation following Rubio's exit, and the apportioning of his delegates to Cruz and Trump, gave the two candidates an equal number of delegates: 14.
"The vote was close and while Sen. Cruz had the total vote overall, when it was recalibrated, Cruz got 14.39 and Trump got 13.61, and, by our historically used method, we round to the nearest whole number," state party chairman Peter Goldberg said in a statement.
Before the shake-up, Cruz had 12 delegates, Trump had 11 and Rubio had 5. Candidates had to receive at least 13 percent of the statewide vote to win delegates.
The state GOP convention is set for April 28-30 in Fairbanks. The national convention is scheduled for July 18-21 in Cleveland.