LANSING, Mich. – Bernie Sanders breathed new life into his long-shot White House bid with a crucial win in Michigan’s primary Tuesday night, chipping away at Hillary Clinton’s dominance in the Democratic presidential race. Republican Donald Trump swept to victory in both Michigan and Mississippi, overcoming fierce efforts to blunt his momentum.
Even with Sanders’ win, Clinton and Trump moved closer to a general election face-off. Clinton breezed to an easy victory in Mississippi, propelled by overwhelming support from black voters, and she now has more than half the delegates she needs to clinch the Democratic nomination. Trump, too, padded his lead over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, his closest rival.
The front-runners turned their sights on November as they reveled in their wins.
“We are better than what we are being offered by the Republicans,” Clinton declared.
In a nod toward the kind of traditional politics he’s shunned, Trump emphasized the importance of helping Republican senators and House members get elected in the fall. Having entered Tuesday’s contests facing a barrage of criticism from rival candidates and outside groups, he also delighted in overcoming the attacks.
“Every single person who has attacked me has gone down,” Trump said at one of his Florida resorts. He was flanked by tables packed with his retail products, including steaks, bottled water and wine, and defended his business record more thoroughly than he outlined his policy proposals for the country.
Sanders, meanwhile, said Michigan signaled that his campaign “is strong in every part of the country, and frankly we believe our strongest areas are yet to happen.”
While a handful of recent losses to Cruz have raised questions about Trump’s durability, Tuesday’s contests marked another lost opportunity for rivals desperate to stop his march to the nomination. Next week’s winner-take-all contests in Ohio and Florida loom large as perhaps the last chance to block him short of a contested convention fight.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich was in a fight with Cruz for second place in Michigan and hoping a good showing would give him a boost heading into next week’s crucial contest in his home state.
For Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a favorite of Republican elected officials, Tuesday marked the latest in a series of disappointing nights. He emerged from Michigan and Mississippi with no new delegates.
Rubio insisted he would press on to his home state’s primary in Florida next Tuesday.
“It has to happen here, and it has to happen now,” Rubio told supporters during a rally in Sarasota.
If Rubio and Kasich can’t win at home, the GOP primary appears set to become a two-person race between Trump and Cruz. The Texas senator is sticking close in the delegate count, and with six states in his win column he’s argued he’s the only candidate standing between the brash billionaire and the GOP nomination.
During a campaign stop at a North Carolina church, Cruz took on Trump for asking rally attendees to pledge their allegiance to him. He said the move struck him as “profoundly wrong” and was something “kings and queens demand” of their subjects.
Some mainstream Republicans have cast both Trump and Cruz as unelectable in a November face-off with the Democratic nominee. But they’re quickly running out of options – and candidates –to prevent one of the men from becoming the GOP standard-bearer.
Republicans were also holding contests Tuesday in Hawaii and Idaho.
The economy ranked high on the list of concerns for voters in Michigan and Mississippi. At least 8 in 10 in each party’s 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.
Among Democrats, 8 in 10 voters in both states said the country’s economic system benefits the wealthy, not all Americans.
Sanders has sought to tap into that concern, energizing young people and white, blue-collar voters with his calls for breaking up Wall Street banks and making tuition free at public colleges and universities. Michigan, with big college towns and a sizeable population of working-class voters, was a good fit for him, though something of a surprise victory given that Clinton had led in polls heading into Tuesday’s voting.
Still, Sanders has struggled mightily with black voters who are crucial to Democrats in the general election. In Mississippi, black voters comprised about two-thirds of the Democratic electorate and nearly 9 in 10 backed Clinton.
After Tuesday’s results, Clinton has accumulated 1,134 delegates and Sanders 502, including superdelegates. Democrats need 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.
With Tuesday’s wins, Trump leads the Republican field with 428 delegates, followed by Cruz with 315, Rubio with 151 and Kasich with 52. Winning the GOP nomination requires 1,237 delegates.
Pace reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, Kathleen Ronayne in Monroe, Michigan, and Steve Peoples in Sarasota, Florida, contributed to this report.
Plaintiff seeks to withdraw from lawsuit
SAN DIEGO – Tarla Makaeff has had enough of Donald Trump after spending six years fighting him in court.
The Southern California yoga instructor wants to withdraw from a federal class-action lawsuit that says Trump University fleeced students with an empty promise to teach them real estate. Her lawyers said the Republican presidential front-runner and his team have put her “through the wringer” and made the prospect of a trial unbearable. A judge will consider the request Friday, four days before Florida and Ohio hold their primaries.
Trump’s attorneys say the lawsuit should be dismissed if Makaeff is allowed to withdraw, arguing that their trial strategy centers on her. They deposed her four times and identify her as “the critical witness” in a court filing.
The tussle in one of three lawsuits against Trump University comes as the case nears trial, possibly this summer.
The lawsuit has figured prominently in the presidential campaign, fueled by legal filings and Trump’s statements.
In depositions that took place in December and January and were released last week, Trump acknowledged that he never met instructors whom his marketing described as hand-picked, and that some unqualified candidates had “slipped through the cracks.”
The Better Business Bureau said Tuesday that it rated Trump University a D- in 2010, which improved to A+ by January 2015 as the business appeared to wind down and older complaints automatically rolled off its books.
Makaeff attended a three-day “Fast Track to Foreclosure” workshop for $1,495 in 2008 and later enrolled in the “Trump Gold Elite” program for $34,995, spending a total of about $60,000 on seminars in a year, her attorneys say. In April 2010, she sued in San Diego federal court.
Trump sued for defamation, seeking $1 million. Makaeff prevailed on appeal, and a judge last year ordered Trump to pay $798,779 in her legal fees.
Trump and his attorneys are trying to frame much of their case around Makaeff, saying she gave instructors high marks in surveys after the courses.
“The reason they want her out of the case is she is a horrible, horrible witness. She’s got in writing that she loves it. And I could have settled it and when I saw her documentation ... Why would I give her money? Probably should have settled it, but I just can’t do that. Mentally I can’t do it. I’d rather spend a lot more money and fight it,” Trump said at a rally in Arkansas last month, according to a transcript.
In last week’s Republican debate, Trump said Makaeff wants to withdraw “because it’s so bad for her.”
“She simply did not put in the time, work, and perseverance necessary to achieve success,” Trump’s lawyers wrote the judge last month.
Makaeff’s attorneys say the yoga instructor was unaware of Trump’s “false advertising” when she filled out the surveys and didn’t want to risk alienating anyone who might advance her career.
Makaeff didn’t imagine she would be subjected to criticism under the glare of a presidential campaign, her attorneys say. She has been deposed for a total of nearly 16 hours and suffered anxiety about finances while Trump sued her for defamation.
“Understandably, Makaeff wants her life back without living in fear of being disparaged by Trump on national television,” they wrote in a court filing last week.
Makaeff declined to comment through an attorney. In a statement to the court, she said she was grieving her mother’s death.
“I am very concerned about the toll that the trial would take on my emotional and physical health and well-being,” she wrote.
Trump has also addressed criticism of the lawsuit by pointing to the judge’s ethnic background. Asked on “Fox News Sunday” last month what U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s ethnicity has to do with the case, Trump replied: “I think it has to do perhaps with the fact that I’m very, very strong on the border, very, very strong at the border, and he has been extremely hostile to me.”
Curiel, who was nominated by President Barack Obama and joined the bench in 2012, declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.
