Bernie Sanders breathed new life into his longshot White House bid with a crucial win in Michigan’s primary, chipping away at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s dominance in the Democratic presidential race.
Republican Donald Trump swept to victory in both Michigan and Mississippi, overcoming fierce efforts to blunt his momentum.
Even with Sanders’ win on Tuesday night, Clinton and Trump moved closer to a general election face-off. Clinton breezed to an easy victory in Mississippi, propelled by overwhelming support from black voters, and she now has more than half the delegates she needs to clinch the Democratic nomination at the party’s national convention in July. Trump, too, padded his lead over Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Photo: AP
Trump entered Tuesday’s contests facing questions about his durability and ended the night with a pair of convincing victories. Cruz added a win in Idaho, bolstering his case that he is the only candidate who can beat Trump with some regularity.
Republicans were also holding caucuses in Hawaii, and Trump led Cruz in early returns on Tuesday.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio suffered another brutal drubbing, failing to pick up any delegates in Michigan and Mississippi. He faces a critical contest in Florida next week. Similarly, Ohio Governor John Kasich desperately needs to win his home state on Tuesday next week to stay in the race.
Photo: Reuters
Kasich finished third in Michigan, behind Trump and Cruz. It was not the boost he was looking for heading into next week’s crucial contest in his home state.
With the prospect of a Trump nomination growing more likely, rival campaigns and outside groups have significantly stepped up efforts to discredit the real-estate mogul. However, the flood of attacks on Trump’s business record and temperament have failed to slow his rise.
“Every single person who has attacked me has gone down,” Trump said at one of his Florida resorts.
He was flanked by tables packed with his branded retail products, including steaks, bottled water and wine, and defended his business record more thoroughly than he outlined his policy proposals for the nation.
While a handful of recent losses to Cruz have raised questions about Trump’s standing, Tuesday’s contests marked another lost opportunity for rivals desperate to stop his march to the nomination. Next week’s winner-take-all contests in Ohio and Florida loom as perhaps the last chance to block him short of a contested convention fight.
Rubio, whose appeal with party leaders has not been reciprocated by voters, insisted he would press on to Florida.
If Rubio and Kasich can not win in their home states, the Republican primary contest appears set to become a two-person race between Trump and Cruz. The Texas senator is sticking close in the delegate count and with seven states in his win column, he has argued that he is the only candidate standing between the brash billionaire and the Republican nomination.
Some mainstream Republicans have cast both Trump and Cruz as unelectable in a November face-off with the Democratic nominee. However, they are quickly running out of options — and candidates — to prevent one of the men from becoming the Republican standard-bearer.
The economy ranked high on the list of concerns for voters in Michigan and Mississippi. At least eight in 10 in each party’s primary said they were worried about where the US economy is heading, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research.
Among Democrats, eight in 10 voters in both states said the nation’s economic system benefits the wealthy, not all Americans.
Sanders has sought to tap into that concern, energizing young people and white, working-class voters with his calls for breaking up Wall Street banks and making tuition free at public colleges and universities.
Michigan, with big college towns and a sizeable population of working-class voters, was a good fit for him, though his victory there was something of a surprise given that Clinton had led in polls heading into Tuesday’s voting.
Still, Sanders has struggled mightily with black voters who are crucial to Democrats in the general election. In Mississippi, black voters comprised about two-thirds of the Democratic electorate and nearly nine in 10 backed Clinton.
Clinton glossed over her contest with Sanders as she addressed supporters, choosing instead to focus her attention on Republicans and the general election.
“We are better than what we are being offered by the Republicans,” she said.
Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, said Michigan signaled “that we are a national campaign” after wins in different regions of the country.
“As more people get to know more about who we are and what our views are, we’re going to do very well,” the Vermont senator said in a statement.
After Tuesday’s results, Clinton had accumulated 1,221 delegates and Sanders 571, including super delegates — members of the US Congress, governors and party officials who can support the candidate of their choice at the convention. Democrats need 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.
With Tuesday’s wins, Trump led the Republican field with 446 delegates, followed by Cruz with 347, Rubio with 151 and Kasich with 54. Winning the GOP nomination requires 1,237 delegates.
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