The candidates have engaged in heated debates and put out controversial advertisements. All of this leads to the upcoming primaries and caucuses.
Super Tuesday, one of the biggest days in the campaign season where more than 10 states and territories were up for grabs, was a success for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in their respective parties.
On the Republican side, Trump, before Tuesday, March 1, had picked up wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. On the big night, Trump achieved victories in Virginia, Georgia, Vermont, Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts and Tennessee.
Ted Cruz (R), who has won only one state, Iowa, picked up wins in evangelical and very conservative states like Texas and Oklahoma. Texas is also Cruz’s home state. In third place is Marco Rubio (R), who was victorious for the first time in Minnesota. On March 5-8, Cruz picked up wins in Kansas, Maine and Idaho; Trump was victorious in Kentucky, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi and Louisiana; Rubio picked up his second win in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory.
The total delegate count on March 9th, according to the New York Times, is as follows: Trump, 446 delegates; Cruz, 347 delegates; and rounding out the top three is Rubio, with 151 delegates.
Many have questioned Trump’s ability to unify the Republican Party, exclaiming that he is splitting the party in half. Trump reassured people’s doubts by ending his Super Tuesday press conference with, “I just want to leave you with this. I am a unifier. I would love to see the Republican Party and everybody get together and unify. And when we unify, there’s nobody, nobody that’s going to beat us.”
Both Rubio and Cruz have said that they are better alternatives to Trump and that they can unify the party. Cruz spoke in Stafford, Texas, on March 1st and promised unity by protesting, “So long as the field remains divided, Donald Trump’s path to the nomination remains more likely. And that would be a disaster . . . for conservatives, and for the nation. And after tonight, we have seen that our campaign is the only campaign that has beaten, that can beat, and that will beat Donald Trump,” Cruz said. He spoke to primary voters in future states: “We must come together.”
On the Democratic side of the spectrum, Hillary Clinton is well on her way to winning the nomination and gaining the privilege of being the Democratic Party’s nominee.
Clinton was given a scare in the first caucus in Iowa, barely squeaking out a win by what some news outlets like Fox News reported that votes were determined by coin flips in some of the late reporting precincts. Bernie Sanders (D), who is a democratic socialist, as he calls it, went on to win the New Hampshire primary a week later.
It went downhill from there for Sanders as he lost in Nevada and South Carolina (by a large margin). Clinton is helped by her overwhelming support from African-Americans in the southern states.
On Super Tuesday, Clinton’s “firewall” (where a candidate deems they will win the most) was intact as she went on to win all of the southern states, and Massachusetts, with some by large margins (Clinton picked up a win in Louisiana, another southern state, on March 5 and a win in Mississippi on March 8th). Sanders was victorious in Oklahoma, his home state of Vermont, Minnesota and Colorado (Sanders has recently picked up four more wins: Kansas, Maine, Nebraska and Michigan.
Clinton ended her victory speech in Miami, with, “We have come too far to stop now. We’ve got to keep going. Keep working. Keep breaking down those barriers and imagine what we can build together when each and every American has a chance to live up to his or her own God-given potential.”
News stations and analysts are predicting that Clinton will now easily win the Democratic Party’s nomination with the strong showing on Tuesday. Sanders had a different tone.
“Now, Wall Street may be against us and the super PACs (independent political action committees that have the ability to fund and coordinate with campaigns) may be against us. But you know why we’re going to win? Because our message is resonating and the people that we stand together with will be victorious.”
On March 10th, Republicans in the Virgin Islands will vote in a caucus. Republicans will vote in the District of Columbia Convention, Guam Convention and Wyoming Convention on March 12th. The Democrats will vote in the Northern Marina Islands Convention on the same day.
