Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton seize Florida as Marco Rubio drops out
DOMINATING today’s Democratic primary votes, Hillary Clinton has taken aim at Donald Trump for “embarrassing” the United States.
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DONALD Trump has claimed Florida with all its 99 delegates before also taking North Carolina and Illinois after an action-packed start to today’s primary votes across the US.
On the Democrat side, Clinton is so far dominating after seizing Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Illinois to possibly edge Bernie Sanders out of the competition. The count for results in Missouri have been postponed for the night and will be determined tomorrow, with both sides of politics locked in a dramatically tight contest.
Despite losing Ohio to Governor John Kasich, Trump is marking his latest string of victories by saying he is bringing new voters to the Republican party.
During a victory rally at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida Trump said that “something is happening” in the Republican Party that is being noticed “all over the world.” He touted increased voter turnout and a rise in new voters who have come out to support him.
A humiliated Marco Rubio has dropped out of the presidential race after he suffered the devastating loss of his home state of Florida.
Trump congratulatied Marco Rubio for running a “tough campaign.” Though Trump mercilessly mocked Rubio in recent weeks, calling him “little Marco,” he briefly changed his tune during his victory speech.
Trump said that the senator was a “tough, smart” candidate who has “a great future.” But he also posted a harsh tweet featuring a clip of Rubio saying in March that the Florida victor would be the Republican nominee and the caption, “Thank you Marco, I agree!”
Thank you Marco, I agree! pic.twitter.com/PTfFzFno9p
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 16, 2016
Rubio earlier in the night congratulated Trump for his victory in Florida. The two had exchanged bitter broadsides for weeks, including some angry exchanges at recent debates.
Kasich has snagged his first primary win in his home state of Ohio — another key winner-takes-all state — keeping 66 delegates from Trump.
CLINTON’S DIG AT TRUMP
Clinton gave a victory speech declaring that she was moving closer to the Democratic nomination after three early states wins in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. Later, she also won Illinois, her birth state.
Clinton celebrated in Florida with supporters, declaring it “another super Tuesday for our campaign”.
The former Secretary of State also laid into Trump in a call to action to her supporters.
“Our commander-in-chief has to be able to defend our country, not embarrass it,” she said.
She allured to the brash candidate who backs rounding up immigrants, banning Muslims and supports torture.
“That doesn’t make him strong, it makes him wrong,” she said.
“We should be breaking down barriers not building walls.”
She also called for all candidates to lay out specifics - including the cost - of their plans, something she has repeatedly asked of her Democratic rival Sanders.
In a speech to supporters in Phoenix, Sanders barely discussed today’s contests, instead delivering his standard campaign speech, decrying the influence of big money in politics.
He vowed that “billionaires would have to pay their fair share.”
RUBIO BOWS OUT
Rubio, who long staked his bid on winning his home state of Florida, announced the suspension of his campaign to supporters as Trump claimed victory. Many in the Republican establishment had backed him in the hope of derailing Trump’s dash to the nomination.
The shift in the contest leaves Kasich as the only moderate Republican left in the race, taking on frontrunner Trump and tea party hero Cruz.
Cruz said he is welcoming Marco Rubio’s former supporters “with open arms” and that the battle for the Republican presidential nomination was a “two person race” between himself and Trump — clearly belittling Kasich’s chances.
A humiliated Rubio told a crowd in Miami that he knows that voters are angry and that there is a hunger for new faces and voices in government.
Rubio appeared to take aim at Trump in his speech.
“From a political standpoint, the easiest thing to have done in this campaign is to jump on all that anxiety ... to make people angrier. Make people more frustrated. But I chose a different route and I’m proud of that. Because that would have been, in a year like this, that would have been the easiest way to win, but that is not what’s best for America,” Rubio said.
“The politics of resentment against other people will not just leave us a fractured party, they’re going to leave us a fractured nation.
“They’re going to leave us as a nation where people literally hate each other because they have different political opinions.”
JOHN KASICH PUTS ON A BRAVE FACE
Kasish said he wouldn’t take the “low road” in his party’s divisive presidential primary after his home-state win in Ohio.
“The campaign goes on,” Kasich told a crowd in Berea, Ohio.
Kasich’s speech was interrupted by a protester wearing clothes with Trump’s campaign logo - “Make America Great Again.
To that, Kasich joked that he appreciates a good, “peaceful protest every once in a while” since he went to college in the 1970’s.
PRIMARY RESULTS
Both Trump and Clinton seized the presidential primary in Florida early on, further solidifying their leads in the hotly contested race for the Republican and Democratic nominations.
Trump scooped all 99 delegates after attracting 45 per cent of the votes in the all-or-nothing contest and tweeted about his victory: “Word is that, despite a record amount spent on negative and phony ads, I had a massive victory in Florida. Numbers out soon!”
Trump also won Illinois and North Carolina, both with about 40 per cent of the votes and Cruz on his tail in second place.
In Ohio, Kasish won with about 47 per cent of the votes, taking all of the state’s 66 delegates.
Clinton was confirmed victor in Florida after thrashing rival Bernie Sanders with 64 per cent of the vote. The Sunshine State is Democrats’ biggest delegate prize of the night with 214 delegates at stake.
Clinton has also been declared the winner in North Carolina with about 54 per cent of the votes, adding to her run of victories in the South, as well as in Ohio with 56 per cent.
It was a tight race in Illinois, Clinton’s birthplace, which she eventually went onto win Illinois with 50 per cent of the votes.
WHITE POWDER SCARE
US Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio’s Washington campaign office was evacuated after a suspicious white powder was found.
Campaign spokesman Alex Conant told ABC News employees were evacuated to the roof of the Washington office building as a hazardous materials crew inspected the office.
BARACK OBAMA’S VEILED TRUMP SWIPE
US President Barack Obama has branded the presidential campaign as “vulgar and divisive” in a thinly-veiled attack on Donald Trump.
Obama said the campaign was “tarnishing” America’s brand.
In some of his most pointed comments on the 2016 election, Obama said the candidates were setting a bad example for children. The remarks were a thinly-veiled reference to Trump, although Obama did not name names.
“(This) is a cycle that is not an accurate reflection of America and it has to stop,” Obama said. “The corrosive behaviour can undermine our democracy and our society and even our economy.”
Obama said he’d been “dismayed” by the campaign trail. He said the campaign had featured “vulgar and divisive rhetoric aimed at women and minorities, and Americans who don’t look like us or pray like us or vote like we do”.
He said that while he accepted the importance of free speech, the rhetoric must be challenged.
“Too often we’ve accepted this as somehow the new normal and it’s worth asking ourselves what each of us have done to contribute to these kind of vicious attitudes in our politics,” he said.
Trump also faced attacks rom others which have intensified.
First, the frontrunner was battling criticism over violence at his rallies, with the North Carolina sheriff considering charging the billionaire with “inciting a riot”, before ruling charges out.
Second, this coincided with the anti-Trump Super PAC’s TV commercial, presenting everyday women reciting various statements Mr Trump has made about women. It begins: “Bimbo. Dog. Fat pig”.
And finally, also on the eve of the key vote, popular US blog Humans of New York launched an open letter against the frontrunner which was running viral by last night.
Previous attacks on Trump, however, have yet to blunt his momentum.
Originally published as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton seize Florida as Marco Rubio drops out
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