Front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton today fast tracked their race to the White House after posting big wins in the crucial multi-state “Super Tuesday” primaries to stay on course for clinching their parties’ presidential nominations. Bernie Sanders is on track to get a sliver of the 222 delegates at stake but didn’t compete like the Vermont senator had done in Iowa and New Hampshire.
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Donald Trump offered an olive branch to Republican party leaders who are deeply opposed to his presidential candidacy Tuesday, making the case he can unify and grow the party.
Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas and neighboring Oklahoma, while Marco Rubio struggled without a win so far, a setback to his effort to emerge as the leading Trump alternative.
Trump won at least 139 Super Tuesday delegates, while Ted Cruz has won at least 52. Neither candidate won the presidential election. Each candidate won seven states – most in the South but also in New England – with only the results of Alaska’s Democratic caucus still to come.
Cruz can look as strong in upcoming primaries as he did in Texas and Oklahoma on Tuesday.
At a rally in Essex Junction, Vt., Sanders predicted that “by the end of tonight, we are going to win many hundreds of delegates”, challenging the notion that Clinton was unstoppable. “For the candidates who have not yet won a state, who have not racked up significant delegates, I ask you to prayerfully consider our coming together, united”. It was a big night for Donald Trump, too, but what will the establishment do about it? “We’re going to go to Florida, we’re going to spend so much time in Florida”. Voters who considered themselves moderate, somewhat conservative and very conservative all backed Trump by wide margins in MA, the exit poll showed.
Mrs Clinton, who seeks to become America’s first female president, has faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from Mr Sanders.
“She’s been there for so long”, Trump said at his swanky Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. She rode her support among African-American voters on a Southern sweep through Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, and added MA, a state Sanders had hoped to win.
Cruz is warning that the “Trump train” could be “unstoppable” if he wins big victories Tuesday.
And here’s another guess: If it does turn out to be Clinton versus Trump in the general election, we’re headed for the nastiest campaign we’ve ever seen: The mother of nasty campaigns.
“You know America never stopped being great”, she said in Northern Virginia, referring to Trump’s campaign slogan.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has voted in his hometown of Burlington, Vermont as Super Tuesday kicks off across 11 states.
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All of this, individually, can be considered good news for the Trump resistance.
