Bernie Sanders breathed new life into his longshot White House bid with a crucial win in Michigan’s primary, chipping away at Hillary Clinton’s dominance in the Democratic presidential race. “We had Republican support, we had a president willing to sign it”.
Advertisement
The next major primaries are on March 15.
“My priorities are to deport violent criminals, terrorists and anyone who threatens our safety – stop the raids, stop the roundups”. Sanders said she was taking his positions out of context and that he had opposed slave-like conditions for guest workers.
Sanders, a democratic socialist, said he supported the bailout and voted for it in the Senate, but that bill failed to win approval.
“Well that hurts my feelings, but I’ll try to go on”, she said.
Polls going into Tuesday indicated that Clinton had a double-digit lead over Sanders. He called that notion “ridiculous” and “absurd”, and he accused Clinton of picking small pieces out of big legislative packages to distort his voting record. In one, she made people laugh.
“I will do everything I can to prevent other families to face what you are facing”, Clinton said.
Both promised to take a less aggressive approach than President Barack Obama’s administration toward deportation. Sanders supporters, including Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), said Clinton was inconsistent on the issue, citing her 2007 opposition to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants and her 2014 statement that unaccompanied minors coming to the US from Central America “should be sent back”. The crowd roared. “The most attractive, tall wall – better than the Great Wall of China! – that would run the entire border, that he would somehow, magically, get the Mexican government to pay for”.
Clinton referred to Trump as “un-American” and said he traffics in “prejudice and paranoia”.
“We are better than what we are being offered by the Republicans”, she declared.
The cast of contenders, originally five, has for more than a month now been down to two, one of whom will nearly surely be the nominee. “Your children deserve to be with their mother”.
She faced probing questions about her use of a homebrew email server and private account when she was secretary of state.
“Oh, for goodness – that’s not going to happen”, Ms. Clinton said.
“There is a process under way, and that process will take its course”, he reiterated, saying he’d rather focus on income inequality, climate change and other issues.
MI was the biggest state to watch, with 59 delegates available to Republicans and 130 to Democrats.
“My kids were embarrassed by it, and if I had to do it again I wouldn’t”, Rubio said. Clinton was the victor of Tuesday night’s MS primary.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Democrats were only supposed to meet for six debates, but both candidates believed it was to their advantage to negotiate for more as it became clear that Sanders was posing a legitimate threat to Clinton’s campaign. A week before Election Day, the main stream polls had him 20 points down in MI, but the fact is he has a message that resonates with voters.
He added after applause that he would release his transcripts, since Ms. Clinton said she would release hers when others do, because he didn’t give any speeches to Wall Street. But her loss to Sanders exposed troubling weaknesses for Clinton which she needs to address tonight.
But she found little traction to steer the conversation back to jobs and the economy under aggressive questioning from debate moderators.
The candidates also are focusing on a broader audience, with Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina also in Tuesday’s primary lineup, and a total of 691 delegates at stake.
The 74-year-old senator won most of the delegates up for grabs in MI, but Clinton, who won MS on Tuesday, still leads Sanders with 1,221 delegates to his 571. It’s part of Romney’s effort to block Trump from winning the party’s nomination.
Trump’s popularity among Republicans can be explained by the populist movement sweeping through the party, said James Morone, director of the Taubman Center. “I have won some, I have lost some”.
Republicans were also holding contests Tuesday in Hawaii and Idaho.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush planned to confer with all the candidates – except Trump – ahead of a GOP debate tonight. The problem for Rubio is that recent polls have him double digits behind Trump in Florida. Marco Rubio came in a distant third. He says he supported an earlier, separate bill to aid the carmakers. Ted Cruz, R-TX, 10 percent and Ben Carson 3 percent. She targeted the Republican opponents only when asked near the debate’s end. Clinton leads with pledged delegates 745 to 540.
In that state, it was largely a two-person race between Trump and Cruz.
Kasich finished third in MI, behind Trump and Cruz.
Advertisement
Pace reported from Washington.
