Super Tuesday Democratic primaries: Clinton looks to expand lead over Sanders
Published 9:13 pm Tuesday, March 1, 2016
- Hillary Clinton meets voters at Mapp's Cafe in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Tuesday March, 1, 2016.
The win built on four earlier Super Tuesday victories for Clinton across the south, in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, as she has widened her lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination over rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sanders is so far projected only to win his home state of Vermont but exit polling by Edison Media Research showed close races in Massachusetts and Oklahoma.
The major contests came on the heels of Clinton’s trouncing of Sanders by nearly 50 percentage points in South Carolina on Saturday. That win revealed an overwhelming advantage for Clinton among African American voters that she hoped to build on to sweep six contests Tuesday in southern states with large minority populations.
Less clear was whether her winning streak would dampen Sanders’s chances in four other states at stake — Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Massachusetts.
Sanders addressed supporters early in the evening in his home state of Vermont, telling them that by the end of the night, he will have won hundreds of delegates.
“We have come a very long way in 10 months,” he said. “At the end of tonight, 15 states will have voted. Thirty-five states remain. 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.”
Sanders took the stage to waves of loud screens shortly with his wife, children and grandchildren and the crowd began chanting, “Feel the Bern! Feel the Bern! Feel the Bern!” He mentioned Clinton only in passing, citing her as among those who have said his agenda is too ambitious before touting some of his grandest plans, including making tuition free at public colleges and universities and creating a single-payer health-care system.
Clinton’s campaign emailed supporters to celebrate her early wins.
“Tonight is huge for us. But even while we celebrate, we have to remember: This primary is far from over,” wrote campaign manager Robbie Mook, before asking for donations.
Exit poll data in one key state, Virginia, showed some promising early signs for Clinton. Virginia is a swing state important to Democrats’ hopes of retaining the White House, where Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe serves as governor.
Early exit polls showed that more than eight in 10 Virginians voting in the Democratic primary said they want a president with experience in politics rather than somebody from outside the political establishment. While both Clinton and Sanders have served as U.S. senators, Sanders is seen as more of an outsider candidate and Clinton as the insider.
More than six in 10 Democratic voters in Virginia are white and a little more than two in 10 are black, according to preliminary exit poll data. That is roughly the same ratio as in the 2008 presidential primary in the state where Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton by 29 percentage points; Clinton has outperformed Sanders among black voters.
About three in 10 Democratic voters in Virginia are “very liberal” according to preliminary exit poll data, up significantly from 17 percent in 2008 and a positive sign for Bernie Sanders. In early contests, the Vermont senator has performed better among the most liberal Democrats.
Clinton’s recent wins in South Carolina and also the Nevada caucuses have allowed her to stabilize her campaign after her dramatic loss to Sanders in the New Hampshire primary.
Sanders has mounted an unexpectedly tough challenge to Clinton and he continues to draw large crowds and rake in campaign contributions with an economic message that has promised to lift the middle class and close the gap between rich and poor.
Still, after her recent victories, Clinton this week has begun to pivot to her likely general-election opponent, Donald Trump.
Taking questions from traveling reporters for the first time in months, Clinton said while campaigning in Minneapolis that Trump appears to be “on the path” to the GOP nomination.
“I’m just speaking out against bigotry and bullying wherever I hear it,” said Clinton, who was campaigning with Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D). “And I hear a lot of it from the Republican candidates.”
Clinton is spending her election eve in Florida, hosting a campaign victory party in a state that will be politically important later in the month. Florida will award 214 delegates on March 15.
Sanders, meanwhile, cast his vote early Tuesday at a polling station in Burlington, Vt., the city where he served as mayor in the 1980s.
“I will tell you: After a lot of thought, I voted for me for president,” a smiling Sanders told one man after taking a selfie with him.
Sanders vowed that he would soldier on, regardless of how many delegates he wins Tuesday.
“This is a campaign that’s going to the Philadelphia convention in July,” he said.
Taking questions from traveling reporters for the first time in months, Clinton said while campaigning in Minneapolis that Trump appears to be “on the path” to the GOP nomination.
“I’m just speaking out against bigotry and bullying wherever I hear it,” said Clinton, who was campaigning with Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D). “And I hear a lot of it from the Republican candidates.”
Clinton is spending her election eve in Florida, hosting a campaign victory party in a state that will be politically important later in the month. Florida will award 214 delegates on March 15.
Sanders, meanwhile, cast his vote early Tuesday at a polling station in Burlington, Vt., the city where he served as mayor in the 1980s.
“I will tell you: After a lot of thought, I voted for me for president,” a smiling Sanders told one man after taking a selfie with him.
Sanders vowed that he would soldier on, regardless of how many delegates he wins Tuesday.
“This is a campaign that’s going to the Philadelphia convention in July,” he said.
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Wagner reported from Essex Junction, Vt. and Helderman from Washington. Scott Clement and Juliette Eilperin in Washington; Katie Zezima in Houston; Patricia Sullivan in Arlington, Va.; Laura Vozzella in Richmond, Va. Abby Phillip in Minneapolis, Minn.; Anne Gearan and Paul Kane in Washington; Robert Costa in Atlanta; Jose A. DelReal in Nashville; Fenit Nirappil in Norfolk, Va.; Ed O’Keefe in Alcoa, Tenn.; and David Weigel in Castleton, Vt., contributed to this report.