Republican and Democratic front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton struck big in the Super Tuesday 2 primaries, but the loss of Ohio to Governor John Kasich slowed the billionaire businessman’s momentum a wee bit after his knockout punch in Florida that expelled Senator Marco Rubio from the race.
Undeterred by sharp media criticism and an adverse commercial blitz by rivals, Trump captured Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and the Northern Mariana Islands in style, but was tied with Senator Ted Cruz in Missouri. Clinton virtually swept Tuesday’s contests, winning big in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Illinois, but she too was tied with Senator Bernie Sanders in Missouri.
It’s now a triangular race for the Republican nomination, with Kasich announcing that he would take the battle right up to the party convention in July against the backdrop of projections that Trump, despite an outstanding performance, may fall short of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination, thus leading to what may well be a “contested convention”.
As of Wednesday morning, Trump had secured an overall 621 delegates, with Cruz having 396 and Kasich 138. Rubio, who dropped out after the Florida results, had 168 delegates – a pool that is now being actively coveted by the three remaining contestants, each of whom heaped praise on Rubio for having mounted a competent bid.
Trump, obliquely acknowledging that he could fall a little short of the requisite number, sought to warn on Wednesday that a contested convention could be a disaster leading to riots. “I think you would have riots,” Trump said on CNN, adding: “If you disenfranchise those people, and you say, ‘I’m sorry, you are 100 votes short’... I think you would have problems like you have never seen before. I think bad things would happen.”
The Democratic contest, in contrast to the Republican uncertainties, appeared to be clearly defined with Clinton well on her way to win the nomination by effectively beating back the spirited challenge from Sanders. Clinton has won 1,094 delegates against Sanders’ 774 in the primaries. Additionally, Clinton has the backing of as many as 467 ‘Super-delegates’ as against her rival’s 26.
“We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and closer to winning this election in November,” a confident Clinton told her supporters in Florida.
Hitting out at the type of campaign that Trump has mounted, Clinton said, “Our commander-in-chief has to be able to defend our country, not embarrass it, engage our allies, not alienate them, defeat our adversaries not embolden them. When we have a candidate for president call for rounding up 12 million immigrants, banning all Muslims from entering United States, when he embraces torture, that doesn’t make him strong, it makes him wrong.”
Trump fired back at Clinton, terming her an “embarrassment” for the country. “She’s under federal investigation. She doesn’t have the strength or the stamina to be president,” Trump said in his interview to CNN, adding: “She talks about defeating our enemies. Well where had she been for the last yearIJ We can’t even beat ISIS. She wouldn’t know how to defeat the enemy.”
Rubio, who suffered the brutal blow in his home State of Florida losing it to Trump by as much as 19% votes, said as he announced suspension of his campaign, “While this may not have been the year for a hopeful and optimistic message about our future, I still remain hopeful and optimistic about America.”
Kasich, who has sought to run a policy-oriented campaign without involving himself with personal attacks on anyone, remarked in an oblique dig at Trump: “I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land.”