The “Super Tuesday” vote gave Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump a consolidating edge over their respective rivals as the two front-runners for presidential nomination secured the biggest numbers of states and delegates in the South.
Former First Lady Clinton won in at least six states where the largest number of delegates were for up for grab. Senator Bernie Sanders won four states in Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. If super delegate votes, pledged to Clinton, are not counted 508 delegates for her and around 300 for Sanders mean the Democratic field might see more intense contests ahead.
On the Republican side, Trump, with seven Super Tuesday states and around 260 delegates remained clearly ahead of Ted Cruz, who won two states and Marco Rubio who won his first state on Tuesday.
Clinton, after winning in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Texas, was already eying Trump as her ultimate rival for the coveted Oval Office that eluded her eight years ago, when the then senator Barack Obama won the nomination.
“What a Super Tuesday,” Clinton told a cheering crowd in Florida. “America has never stopped being great. We have to make America Whole.”
She repeated a slogan she has coined in recent days clearly aimed at Trump who has been raising slogans of once again making America great.
In an apparent jibe at Clinton’s use of her private mail account for official use, Trump hit back at the former Secretary of State in his own jeering mode telling her that she had been there for so long and “if she hasn’t straightened it out by now, she’s not going to straighten it out in the next four years.
Clinton has been razor-sharp in her criticism of Trump’s alarmist approach who has used terrorist attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino to demand total bar on entry of Muslims into the United States and throwing out nearly 11 million illegal immigrants.
On the other hand, Trump was celebrating his own streak of victories in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Virginia, after having won in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina in earlier contests.
The Republican establishment which earlier thought of Trump as an unlikely candidate is now may be in for a rude awakening after the billionaire real-estate seems on the verge of acquiring delegate lead in the Super Tuesday that could well be insurmountable now.
Democrats were vying for 865 delegates in 11 states and American Samoa, while Republican voted in 11 states, having 595 delegates.
While the results are still pouring in, US media reported at least 139 Tuesday delegates for Trump, followed by Republican rival Ted Cruz with at least 52 delegates.
Cruz, seen as one of the two candidates along with Marco Rubio who can give a tough time to Trump, won his home state of Texas, a victory he desperately needed to remain in the race. He also won the neighboring state of Oklahoma. But Trump’s win in South is still seen a big glow to Cruz.
The night turned out to be a big disappointment for Rubio who had gained confidence in recent days after having won support of many Republican officeholders. In spite of being seen as a potential candidate, his first and only victory has been in Minnesota.
On the Democratic side, veteran Senator Sanders who has rode on a popular support of young voters for his call against income inequality and criminal justice system, again surprised analysts with a much larger number of votes.
“At the end of tonight, 15 states will have voted, 35 states remain,”Sanders told his supporters in Vermont. “And let me assure you that we are going to take our fight for economic justice, for social justice, for environmental sanity, for a world of peace to every one of those states.”
