It raises the issue of whether he can win next week in Ohio, Missouri, and IL – other Midwest states troubled by industrial decline where polls seem to show Hillary Clinton far ahead.
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Donald Trump won the GOP race in MI, with 39 percent of the vote.
With Tuesday’s wins, Trump leads the Republican field with 428 delegates, followed by Cruz with 315, Rubio with 151 and Kasich with 52.
While Mr Sanders upset Mrs Clinton in MI, she increased her delegate lead by sweeping MS and is now halfway to the number needed to clinch the nomination.
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump scored convincing victories in the MI and MS presidential primaries to regain momentum in the face of the party establishment’s concerted efforts to trip him.
Anti-Trump Super PACS have spent millions of dollars on advertisements created to attack Trump’s character in Florida, a state Rubio calls home and Trump calls a second home.
Together, the two states are essential for GOP rivals who hope to hold Trump below the necessary 1,237 delegates for the nomination – and to keep an ardent free trade opponent off the top of the Republican ticket.
With 12 per cent of votes in, Trump had a narrow lead over Ohio Governor John Kasich, and Clinton slightly trailed rival Bernie Sanders with about 18 per cent of the Democratic vote tallied in MI. Clinton, however, crushed Sanders in the southern state of MS, continuing to win a large margin among black voters.
His surprise victory also probably has to do with the fact that younger voters, who tend to favor Sanders over Clinton, turned out in greater than expected numbers.
“That guy, he couldn’t be elected dogcatcher in Florida”, Trump told supporters in North Carolina.
With the win in Michigan, Trump picked up more delegates toward his goal of winning the Republican nomination. The results were still being tallied on Wednesday, but Mook said early signs indicate “it is possible that we may end up netting four times as many delegates out of MS as Sanders netted out of MI”. “I don’t think I’ve ever had so many awful things said about me in one week”, he said about attack ads that ran against him.
Clinton won in MS, but Sanders’ victory in MI was seen as likely to ensure a prolonged fight to pick a candidate.
Sanders is 650 delegates behind.
“What tonight means is that the Bernie Sanders campaign, the people’s revolution that we’re talking about, the political revolution that we’re talking about, is strong in every part of the country”, Sanders said.
If Trump, 69, could sweep those two states and pile up delegates elsewhere next week, it could knock home-state favourites Rubio and Kasich out of the race and make it tough for Cruz to catch him. The primaries in 99-delegate Florida and 66-delegate OH are particularly critical for Republicans, since both are winner-take-all.
“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.
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And in the general election, Clinton would start with an advantage over Trump in both states, leading in Florida and OH by 7 percentage points.
