{"id":16956,"date":"2016-03-09T09:08:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T17:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/clinton-trump-sweep-to-victory-in-mississippi\/"},"modified":"2016-03-09T09:08:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T17:08:19","slug":"clinton-trump-sweep-to-victory-in-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/clinton-trump-sweep-to-victory-in-mississippi\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton, Trump sweep to victory in Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"

LANSING, Mich. \u2014<\/strong> Deepening their dominance in the South, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump swept to easy victories Tuesday in Mississippi\u2019s presidential primaries.<\/p>\n

In Michigan, the night\u2019s biggest prize, Trump led his Republican rivals in early vote counts. Clinton was locked in a tight race with rival Bernie Sanders in the Midwestern industrial state.<\/p>\n

For Sanders, Michigan was a promising opportunity to cut into Clinton\u2019s delegate lead. The state has big college towns and a sizeable population of working-class voters who have been drawn to his calls for a political and economic revolution.<\/p>\n

But Clinton\u2019s victory in Mississippi highlighted her striking ability to attract black voters and Sanders\u2019 stunning failure to do so. The former secretary of state carried nearly 9 in 10 black voters in the Southern state, echoing the results in other states in the region.<\/p>\n

Trump entered Tuesday\u2019s contests facing a barrage of criticism from rival candidates and outside groups who fear he would deeply damage Republicans\u2019 chances of winning in November. His recent losses to Cruz, the Texas senator, have raised questions about his durability and given fresh hope to other competitors.<\/p>\n

Ohio Gov. John Kasich campaigned furiously in Michigan in recent days. He\u2019s yet to win a primary but hoped a good showing in Michigan would give him a boost heading into next week\u2019s crucial contest in his home state.<\/p>\n

Speaking to a crowd in Lansing, Kasich said a strong showing in Michigan would show the country \u201cthat it\u2019s a new day in this presidential campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, Kasich and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio used recorded phone calls from Mitt Romney to appeal to voters as they headed to the polls. Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, has not endorsed a candidate but has vowed to help challengers to Trump, who he says would be dangerous for the country.<\/p>\n

Republicans were also holding contests Tuesday in Hawaii and Idaho. GOP candidates were fighting for 150 delegates, while 179 Democratic delegates were at stake in the party\u2019s two primaries.<\/p>\n

The economy ranked high on the list of concerns for voters heading to the polls in Michigan and Mississippi. At least 8 in 10 voters in each party\u2019s primary said they were worried about where the American economy is heading, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.<\/p>\n

Among Democrats, 8 in 10 voters in both states said the country\u2019s economic system benefits the wealthy, not all Americans.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s contests are a prelude to next week\u2019s high-stakes primaries in Florida and Ohio. Like Kasich, Rubio must win his home state in order to remain a viable contender.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to happen here, and it has to happen now,\u201d Rubio told supporters Tuesday during a rally in Sarasota.<\/p>\n

Rubio has received endorsements from a steady stream of senators, governors and other high-profile Republican officials. But his backing from voters has lagged, and he entered Tuesday\u2019s contests with just a pair of victories in the Minnesota caucuses and Saturday\u2019s Puerto Rico primary.<\/p>\n

If Rubio and Kasich can\u2019t win at home, the GOP primary appears set to become a two-person race between Trump and Cruz. The Texas senator is sticking close to Trump in the delegate count and with six states in his win column, he\u2019s arguing he\u2019s the only candidate standing between the brash billionaire and the GOP nomination.<\/p>\n

During a campaign stop at a North Carolina church Tuesday, Cruz took on Trump for asking rally attendees to pledge their allegiance to him. He said the move strikes him as \u201cprofoundly wrong\u201d and is something \u201ckings and queens demand\u201d of their subjects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not here asking any of you to pledge your support of me,\u201d Cruz said, to thunderous applause and cheers. \u201cI\u2019m pledging my support of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some mainstream Republicans have cast both Trump and Cruz as unelectable in a November face-off with the Democratic nominee. But they\u2019re quickly running out of options and are increasingly weighing long-shot ideas such as a contested convention or rallying around a yet-to-be-determined third-party candidate.<\/p>\n

Heading into Tuesday, Trump led the Republican field with 384 delegates, followed by Cruz with 300, Rubio with 151 and Kasich with 37. Winning the GOP nomination requires 1,237 delegates.<\/p>\n

Among Democrats, Clinton had accumulated 1,134 delegates and Sanders 502, including superdelegates. Democrats need 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Pace reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Emily Wagster in Jackson, Mississippi, Kathleen Ronayne in Monroe, Michigan, and Steve Peoples in Sarasota, Florida contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Julie Pace and David Eggert on Twitter at: http:\/\/twitter.com\/jpaceDC and http:\/\/twitter.com\/DavidEggert00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LANSING, Mich. \u2014 Deepening their dominance in the South, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump swept to easy victories Tuesday in Mississippi\u2019s presidential primaries. In Michigan, the night\u2019s biggest prize, Trump led his Republican rivals in early vote counts. Clinton was locked in a tight race with rival Bernie Sanders in the Midwestern industrial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16956"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}