“Trump and Clinton Feast as 12 States Vote,” screamed the front-page headline of the New York Times, but it should have continued to say “but Trump collected only about 43% of the delegates yesterday.”

In Texas, Senator Cruz (44%) crushed Mr. Trump (27%) and Senator Rubio (18%), taking about two-thirds of the 155 delegates in the biggest contest of the night. Senator Rubio got no Texas delegates, since he did not make the 20% threshold. Mr. Cruz’s 17% margin over Donald Trump was one of the biggest winning margins of the night.

“The ceiling” reappeared. Mr.Trump broke through 40% in only two states, Alabama (42%) and Massachusetts (49%), the ultra-liberal Bay State — go figure.

After the final tally and the awarding of last night’s delegates, Mr. Trump has 319 delegates, Mr. Cruz 226, and Mr. Rubio 110, with the rest scattered among Mr. Kasich and candidates no longer in the race. No one would have predicted that The Donald would be ahead of Mr. Cruz by just 94 delegates at this point.

So the GOP race is not over. Mr. Trump has emerged as less imposing a front-runner than he may have appeared Tuesday evening as the results came in, and the press focused on states won, not delegates or the fact that New Yorker was still mired in “Plurality Land.” Due to the complexity of delegate allocation formulas, many delegates had not yet been awarded Tuesday night – even after midnight — so we can give the commentators a bit of a pass.

With three wins — Texas, Oklahoma, and Alaska — Mr. Cruz emerged as a credible alternative to Mr. Trump. He collected delegates in all twelve states, except Vermont with its 12 delegates. Mr. Rubio did not. He fell short of 20% thresholds in four states, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Vermont.

The results were a far cry from the original ambitions of the Cruz candidacy, which were to sweep the south on Super Tuesday and emerge as unstoppable himself, but his campaign remains viable.

Mr. Rubio’s, less so. With only Minnesota so far, the Senator has little to make the case that he will win in his home state, where polls show him trailing Mr. Trump badly. As a result, uncertainty will hang over his campaign during the preceding two weeks, when 350 delegates will be at stake. Voters and donors may hesitate to commit to Mr. Rubio, knowing that, if he loses Florida, he is done.

The case for Mr. Kasich remains over the horizon, if not over the rainbow. He has to win his home state of Ohio on March 15, like Mr. Rubio in Florida. Unlike Mr. Rubio, Gov. Kasich has a credible shot in that he trails Mr. Trump in Ohio polls by only about 5 points. However, beforehand is the primary in Michigan, where Gov. Kasich is in fourth place with 10% in the RCP poll average, hardly a springboard into Ohio.

Mr. Kasich’s best path might be to reposition as a favorite son and focus exclusively upon Ohio. Winning there, he’d have his current 25 delegates plus the 66-member Ohio delegation to influence the outcome if no one secures the winning 1,237 delegates before the convention.

Tonight, there’s a GOP debate on Fox News at Detroit. Then the race pivots to Saturday’s contests in four states with about 150 delegates at stake: Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine. There’s scant polling data in these states. Anything could happen.

Thereafter, Michigan and Mississippi loom large on Tuesday the 8. Then, we are into winner-takes-all contests, with Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Missouri leading off on the 15th with a combination of 286 delegates going to first-place finishers only.

The GOP race is not yet “a coronation” – or a coup, a revolution, a takeover, a movement, or anything equivalent. Not yet.

Mr. Jahncke is president of The Townsend Group Intl, LLC. RTJahncke@Gmail.com.