Super Tuesday: Clinton, Trump gain momentum

Campaigns moving into delegate-rich cluster states

columbia (South Carolina) — The presidential campaigns are moving into a cluster of delegate-rich state primary elections and caucuses, with Republican billionaire businessman Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, gathering momentum.

Trump, the brash New Yorker, has swept to the front-runner position despite making statements about minorities, immigrants and his rivals that would have sunk a more traditional candidate. On the Democrat side, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has put up a surprisingly strong grassroots candidacy against Clinton, the favorite of the party establishment, while promising a break-up of the big banks and policies to reverse growing income inequality.

Trump heads into Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada with 67 delegates after a resounding victory in South Carolina on Saturday. His closest opponents, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have a total of 11 and 10, respectively. It takes 1,237 delegates to capture the nomination.

Rubio is trying to set himself up as the candidate of the party establishment now that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is out of the race. The more conservative Cruz, who worries many in the party establishment, is unlikely to finish above second or third in the coming contests except in his home state.

With roughly 70 per cent of Republicans in national polls declining to back Trump, Cruz and Rubio are trying to cast themselves as the one candidate around whom the party can coalesce.

But a close look at the election calendar suggests that if they don’t slow Trump by mid-March, their only chance to deny him the Republican nomination may be a nasty fight at the party’s convention this summer.

Among the Democrats, Clinton won a substantial victory Saturday

70% of republicans in national polls declining to back donald Trump

in the Nevada caucuses, where a large majority of black voters supported her, according to entrance polls. That bodes well for her in Saturday’s Democratic primary in South Carolina and on so-called Super Tuesday next week, when

1,237 delegates are needed for a candidate to capture the nomination

primaries are held in several southern states where African-Americans make up a large part of the Democratic electorate. Sanders has yet to prove he can consistently expand his base of support beyond white liberals and young vot-

451 delegates’ support Clinton has gained as compared to 19 for sanders

ers. His campaign cited progress with Latinos in Nevada, but his advisers are clear-eyed about the challenges on Super Tuesday, which offers a large haul of delegates who will choose the party’s nominee. —