The Super Tuesday contests were well suited to Mrs Clinton’s strengths: Her popularity with minority voters, her political kinship with Southern Democrats from her two decades in Arkansas, and her success in delegate-rich Texas in 2008.
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Sanders won four states Tuesday – Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma and his home state of Vermont.
After a week in which many top Republicans had promised to stop the real estate mogul, Trump rolled through the biggest primary night yet.
But the boisterous billionaire was more subdued Tuesday night, trying to project a more presidential tone. Instead of his usual rousing victory parties, he held a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
If Cruz were to advance a general-election-ready alternative, it would quench GOP voters’ six-year thirst.
“I’m going to get along great with Congress. Paul Ryan, I don’t know him well, but I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him”, he said during his victory speech.
The math was also tough for Sanders.
Even before polls opened Tuesday, Cruz was framing the potential outcome, positing that only he and Trump would emerge from the contests with the lion’s share of delegates. Finishing second and third in a variety of states (granted a close finish in Virginia) while only winning Minnesota (and appearing to be tied in the delegate allocation there) means whatever momentum Rubio was banking on should probably evaporate leading toward important contests on March 15.
Although state primaries and caucuses will continue for several months more, Trump and Clinton are the obvious front-runners – upping the likelihood of a showdown between the starkly different candidates.
Sanders’ campaign said Wednesday morning it can erase that deficit between now and June with strong performances in Nebraska and Kansas on March 5, and in other states that vote later in the process, including Michigan, New York and California.
“If this was anybody else as a front-runner, there’d be people right now saying ‘Let’s all rally around the front-runner, ‘” he said, adding, “that will never happen with Donald Trump”. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson said Wednesday he does not “see a political path forward” after the Super Tuesday results.
Kasich and Rubio hope to revitalize their campaigns with victories in their home states that day.
“Tonight, I can say that we have absolutely exceeded expectations”, he told a crowd in Mississippi. But he, too, vowed to remain fighting.
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Both Clinton and Sanders face a formidable risk in the coming weeks – to see the primary campaign to its completion without destroying the party’s November fortunes. Faced with a party in turmoil over his ideas to build a wall between the USA and Mexico, deport 11 million illegal immigrants and bar Muslims from entering the country, Trump declared he had expanded the party by drawing in disaffected blue-collar Democrats who like his tough-on-trade rhetoric.
