Hillary Clinton trounced Bernie Sanders in Ohio, in a surprise blowout, while also scoring predicted wins in Florida and North Carolina.
The huge victories show that Clinton has all but secured the Democratic nomination and laid to rest concerns that Sanders was surging in industrial states.“Tonight it’s clear than ever that this might be one of the most consequential campaigns of our lifetime,” Clinton said in her victory speech.
With 6 percent of the vote reported in Ohio, Clinton had 65 percent to Sanders’ 34 percent – a huge margin considering polls had shown her with a single-digit lead going into Tuesday. In North Carolina, Clinton had 57 percent of the vote to Sanders' 39 percent, with 8 percent of precincts reporting. In Florida, she had 65 percent to Sanders' 33 percent.
The comfortable victory in Ohio is a huge dose of reassurance for the Clinton campaign on a night her campaign entered with no shortage of red flags: Sanders continues to tighten polls and fundraise at a lightning-fast pace. The next set of contests are caucuses in heavily white states where Sanders has excelled. And Sanders has proven his ability to defy expectations, claiming a victory last week in Michigan.
Knockout blows are hard to come by in the Democratic race, where — in contrast to a GOP contest Tuesday punctuated by winner-take-all primaries — all delegates are awarded proportionally. But with a five-state sweep, Clinton could leave Sanders scrambling to catch up in delegates and trying to explain why he couldn’t keep pace with Clinton in Rust Belt states that appear tailor-made for his relentless focus on working-class Americans.
Clinton came into Tuesday with more than twice as many delegates as Sanders, 1235 to 580. Even without superdelegates included, Clinton leads 748 to 542 in pledged delegates.
With nearly 700 pledged delegates in play Tuesday, Clinton is on the way to widening an already formidable lead over Sanders — and win the chance to turn her focus toward the general election.
“I want people who are Democrats to look at this election as to who can be the strongest Democratic nominee against whoever the Republicans put up,” Clinton said Tuesday during a question-and-answer session with reporters earlier on Tuesday. “I think that is most likely me, and I want people to turn out and vote in all of these contests today. Really get us prepared to wage a general election campaign about what’s at stake for our country.”
If Clinton can relegate Sanders to an also-ran, she can spend her time taking on Donald Trump, as well as begin to woo Sanders’ supporters. She appeared ready for that pivot Tuesday, while also noting her intention to keep working at the primary until she’d clinched victory.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-democrats-220793---------------------------------------------------------
Harpy Clinton is truly evil. All that berniebot energy against TRUMP instead of focusing on her..... Here is the result. Thank you Soros! You know how to manipulate the drones. Now all the berniebots will feel confident to update their software and become harpybots, and vote for her, to stop TRUMP. That was well played.
