Sanders upsets Clinton in Mich.; Trump rolls to more victories

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders won big on Tuesday, with Trump tightening his grip on the GOP presidential race while Sanders scored a huge upset to show his Democratic campaign is still alive.

Trump won a commanding victory in Mississippi over Ted Cruz, who took second place, and held off John Kasich and Cruz in Michigan, the biggest delegate prize of the night.

{mosads}“Let’s come together, folks. We’re going to win,” Trump said during a press conference in Jupiter, Fla.

“We’re way up with millions of people. So what I say to the Republicans is embrace it. We will win the election easily.”

On the Democratic side, Sanders won a shocking upset over rival Hillary Clinton in Michigan. She had led by more than 20 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of Michigan polls leading into the primary.

Sanders called on voters Tuesday to help him make it to the general election and take on Trump.

“This is the lesson of history,” Sanders said at a campaign rally. “When people stand together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.”

Clinton took home a huge win in Mississippi, continuing her sweep of the Deep South, where Sanders has been unable to attract significant support from black voters.

Among Republicans, Cruz was in third place in Michigan and Marco Rubio was further behind.

Cruz won a victory of his own Tuesday, taking the Iowa primary.

Hawaii is also holding a GOP contest Tuesday night.

The early numbers showed more bad news for Rubio, who has struggled to gain traction in the race. He has the backing of many GOP office holders and is seen as a Republican establishment favorite, but he has not been able to translate that support into victories.

Michigan appears to hold better news for Kasich, who hoped a strong result there could help him in his home state of Ohio, which holds its winner-take-all primary on March 15.

The onslaught against Trump seems designed to prevent him from winning 1,237 delegates and clinching the nomination.

A Center for Public Integrity analysis of data provided by Kantar Media/CMAG found that 76 percent of all attacks ads in the presidential race over the last week have targeted Trump.

“This was an amazing evening. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many horrible things said about me in one week,” Trump said at his press conference. “It shows you how brilliant the public is because they knew they were lies.” 

“I want to thank special interests and the lobbyists because they obviously did something to drive these numbers … to raise that much money that quickly,” he continued.

If no candidate reaches the delegate threshold, a winner will be selected at the Republican National Convention in July, something that hasn’t happened in either party in decades.

Entering Tuesday, Trump had 384 delegates, with 300 for Cruz, 151 for Rubio and 37 for Kasich.

While Mississippi only awards a modest 40 delegates on a proportional basis, Trump’s victory there is important because it gives the billionaire claims over territory that historically would be Cruz country.

Mississippi is a deeply conservative and heavily evangelical state — two factors that play to the strengths of Cruz, a devout Christian who, unlike Trump, has a consistent record of social conservatism.

Yet Trump has now defeated Cruz in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina and Virginia, while losing to the Texan in Cruz’s home state, as well as Oklahoma.

And in Mississippi, exit polls showed him defeating Cruz among evangelical voters.

On the Democratic side, Clinton entered Tuesday with 1,134 delegates to Sanders’s 502, according an Associated Press count, with 2,383 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

Despite the close loss in Michigan, Clinton is padding her total with the mammoth win in Mississippi.

She beat Sanders among white voters in Mississippi, according to exit polls, and won support from 89 percent of black voters. Some exit polls estimated that 6 in 10 voters in the state were African-American.

Clinton already had rolled up Southern-state wins in Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Virginia by large margins.

At a brief rally on Tuesday night in Cleveland, Ohio, where voters will cast ballots in the primary on March 15, Clinton declined to even acknowledge her victory in Mississippi or the close race in Michigan, instead keeping her focus squarely on Trump. 

“Running for president should be about delivering insults, it should be about delivering results for the American people,” Clinton said. “That’s what I’m doing.”

Clinton said the U.S. can do “better than what we’ve been offered by the Republicans,” and repeated her riff on Trump’s campaign slogan, saying she will “make America whole again.”

In Michigan, Sanders campaign pivoted to a new argument this week, saying Clinton looks like a regional candidate who has trouble winning outside the South, which Sanders argues will not be an area of strength for Democrats in the general election.

Clinton’s wins in Iowa, Nevada and Massachusetts, however, challenge that argument, though the win in Michigan gives the Sanders campaign more ammunition.

The state’s primary took place two days after Sanders and Clinton squared off in a debate in Flint, Mich., that touched on that city’s water crisis, the bailout of U.S. auto companies and trade.

Sanders has slammed Clinton’s past support of trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by the Obama administration. 

Clinton now opposes that pact, but Sanders says her opposition was too late — an argument tailor-made for Michigan voters, many of whom have chafed at trade policies backed by both parties.

Updated at 12:07 a.m.