Clinton won the presidential primaries in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, widening her significant delegate lead over rival Bernie Sanders. But the former secretary of state and NY senator blunted his momentum from a win last week in MI and widened her already formidable delegate lead, making it almost impossible for him to catch up.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is backing away from a suggestion that he might cover legal costs for a supporter who was involved in an altercation with another person at a rally last week in North Carolina.
“When we hear a candidate for president call for rounding up 12 million immigrants, banning all Muslims from entering the United States”, she said here, alluding to Trump’s proposals without naming him, to boos from the crowd. “I think a lot of young people voted for Bernie”, she said.
Clinton and Sanders were competing in primaries in Florida and OH, the nation’s two leading general election battleground states, along with Missouri, North Carolina and IL. That means Clinton will take about two-thirds of the state’s 214 Democratic delegates.
North Carolina’s 72 delegates are awarded on a proportional basis.
Trump’s appeal with Florida’s educated Republican voters notably broke from the trends seen in most other states like North Carolina and IL where the billionaire won with a coalition of less educated and lower income voters.
Clinton has previously defended her record by saying she voted against the only trade agreement to come before her in the Senate.
The state of the economy was the most important issue to about half of Democrats, who split their votes between Clinton and Sanders.
Even if Tuesday doesn’t significantly alter the delegate math that makes Clinton the prohibitive front-runner, a strong Sanders performance in the industrial Midwest would make possible the long campaign that the senator and his aides switched to after their big and unexpected loss in the Nevada caucuses.
Still, Sanders remains a much more potent threat to Clinton than seemed likely when he launched his campaign a year ago. Sanders has 580 when the count includes superdelegates.
“That’s the difference between running for president and being president”, she said to more cheers that broke out into chants of “Hillary, Hillary!”
Looking ahead to the fall, Clinton offered pointed words for businessman Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner: “Our commander-in-chief has to be able to defend our country, not embarrass it”. Sanders took 7 in 10 votes among those under age 45; Clinton claimed more than 3 in 5 of those older.
The surveys were conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research as voters left their polling places at 30 to 40 randomly selected sites in five states holding primary elections Tuesday. That fact makes Clinton’s victory in OH all the more gratifying – and, for Sanders, a missed opportunity to show his MI upset was not a fluke.
Republican presidential candidate Sen.
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“What is not acceptable, no matter what your point of view, is to throw racist attacks against Mexicans”, Sanders said.
