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Sanders & Trump win big: Full recap of Tuesday night’s primaries

Posted at 7:45 AM, Mar 09, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-09 07:52:51-05

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on campaign 2016 as Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii vote for nominees (all times Eastern Standard Time):

7:25 a.m.

Donald Trump won most of the delegates in Tuesday’s contests but he still must do better to win the nomination before the Republican National Convention this summer.

Trump won three out of the four states that voted Tuesday. But Trump’s lead over Ted Cruz in the race for delegates grew by only 15 delegates. That’s because all four states awarded delegates proportionally, so even the second-place finisher got some.

Trump has won most of the states that have voted so far, but he is winning only 44 percent of the delegates. Cruz is doing worse, winning only 34 percent. It takes a majority of the delegates to win the nomination.

The delegate math highlights the importance of primaries in states like Ohio and Florida, which allocate all of their delegates to the winner. The two delegate-rich states vote next Tuesday.

In the overall race for delegates, Trump has 458 and Cruz has 359. Marco Rubio has 151 delegates and John Kasich has 54.

It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president.

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7:10 a.m.

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich is repeating his prediction that he’ll win his home state of Ohio next week and predicts that “will be a whole new ball game” in the campaign sweepstakes.

Kasich says he did better in Michigan — finishing in third place closely behind Ted Cruz — than people expected he would do just weeks ago.

He tells ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview that now “we are beginning to be heard and we are gaining.”

He declares “we are still standing,” even though the Ohio governor hasn’t yet won a primary or caucus this season.

He adds that “the calendar has moved more to home-court advantage” and says that he’s “really not that far behind” front-runner Donald Trump.

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6:56 a.m.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says there’s a need for the party to unite around him, but argues that it isn’t yet time for him to dial back his aggressive campaign style.

Celebrating victories Tuesday night in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, the billionaire real estate declares Wednesday that “I am a uniter.”

But he also says he was the victim of “vicious” campaign ads on behalf of his rivals last week and that “I didn’t set the tone of negativity” in the race. Trump says he merely “fought back” and says he has to still run hard. He tells CNN’s “New Day” show Wednesday that “I have to finish off the project.” Trump adds that he expects Thursday night’s GOP debate in Florida to be “a nicer, softer, lighter” event in the wake of his latest triumphs. Trump also revealed that he’s had a “very conciliatory” conversation with House Speaker Paul Ryan.

2:36 a.m.

Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential caucuses in Hawaii, adding to his victories earlier Tuesday in Michigan and Mississippi.

Trump won three of the four Republican contests held on Tuesday. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the fourth, picking up a victory in the Idaho primary.

It was a tough night for John Kasich and Marco Rubio, who both sought momentum headed into primary elections in their home states next week.

Cruz edged out Kasich in Michigan, where the Ohio governor had spent much of the past week campaigning.

And Rubio posted two third-place and two fourth-place finishes on a disappointing night for the Florida senator.

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12:40 a.m.

Donald Trump is winning the most GOP delegates in Tuesday’s contests, but Ted Cruz’s victory in Idaho is limiting Trump’s gains.

Trump will win at least 59 delegates, Cruz will win at least 44 and John Kasich will win at least 17.

Marco Rubio didn’t win any delegates in Michigan or Mississippi and was in danger of being shut out in Idaho, too.

Republican voters were also going to the polls in Hawaii.

A total of 150 Republican delegates were at stake in four states Tuesday. There were still 30 GOP delegates to be allocated, including all 19 in Hawaii.

In the overall race for delegates, Trump has 446 and Cruz has 347. Rubio has 151 delegates and Kasich has 54.

It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president.

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12:14 a.m.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has won the Republican presidential primary in Idaho, adding a seventh state win to his tally in the 2016 White House race.

He finished ahead of GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who earlier Tuesday won the day’s two biggest prizes — the primary elections in Mississippi and Michigan.

Still to come are the results from the GOP’s caucuses in Hawaii. They’ll wrap up at 1 a.m. Eastern time, with results to follow a few hours later.

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11:52 p.m.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’s “grateful to the people of Michigan for defying the pundits and pollsters” and delivering him a win in the state’s Democratic presidential primary.

In a statement issued after Sanders’ win over Hillary Clinton, he says, “We came from 30 points down in Michigan and we’re seeing the same kind of come-from-behind momentum all across America.”

Sanders adds that the results “show that we are a national campaign. We already have won in the Midwest, New England and the Great Plains and as more people get to know more about who we are and what our views are, we’re going to do very well.”

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11:31 p.m.

Bernie Sanders has won the Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, claiming victory over Hillary Clinton in an industrial Midwest state where voters expressed concerns about trade and jobs.

But despite his close win, he won’t see any real gains in delegates for the night. And Clinton has now earned more than half of the 2,383 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

With 130 Michigan delegates at stake, Sanders will win at least 63 and Clinton at least 52. His gains will be canceled out by Clinton’s earlier win in Mississippi. She already entered the night with a 196-delegate lead over Sanders based on primaries and caucuses alone.

Democrats award delegates in proportion to the vote, so Clinton was able to add on a good chunk of delegates even after losing Michigan.

Including superdelegates, her lead becomes even bigger — at least 1,214 to Sanders’ 566.

Still, Sanders can claim a small streak of wins going into a pivotal batch of delegate-rich contests next week.

Since Super Tuesday, Sanders has now won four of the last six states holding contests. Next week, Democratic voters head to the polls in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Florida. In all, 691 delegates will be at stake.

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11:23 p.m.

Elections officials in Detroit say all is back to normal after a computer glitch caused a temporary issue with reporting results in the state’s presidential primary election.

City elections chief Daniel Baxter says Detroit for a short time Tuesday night reported to country officials a single number of votes for each candidate, a combination of both absentee ballots and those cast in person. The county sought a separate tally for each kind of vote.

Baxter says the process of starting the vote count over to report absentee votes and in-person votes separately took about 15 minutes, and did not affect the total votes cast for any candidate.

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10:56 p.m.

The Democratic race in Michigan is too close to call, but the candidates are already trying to make the most out of whatever the outcome may be.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders stepped in front of reporters late Tuesday night in Miami to argue the best is yet to come for his campaign. Sanders says he’ll do well on the West Coast, and points also to next week’s votes in Ohio and Illinois.

He says, “In poll after poll, state after state, what we have done is create the kind of momentum that we need to win.”

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri says her campaign remains “confident she is going to be the nominee.”

Speaking to reporters in Cleveland, Palmieri says “our strategy for getting the nomination is built around accruing more delegates. We will come out on top tonight on delegates.”

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10:25 p.m.

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump says he thinks a negative ad that features clip after bleeped-out clip of him swearing publically is actually going to help him with voters.

Trump said Tuesday he was a little concerned by the ad from the American Future Fund Political Action until he saw it.

He said he thinks that “it’s better than any ad I’ve ever taken for myself.”

Trump said he “can be more presidential than anybody” but that right now he’s focused on beating his rivals.

He adds that, “people are sick and tired of being politically correct.”

Trump says that in some of the instances shows in the ad he was joking. In others, he says he was demonstrating “a certain toughness that we need in our country.”

He adds that if he had a choice between taking the ad down and letting it run, he’d say, “let it run.”

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10:15 p.m.

John Kasich says he’s “very pleased” with the results in Michigan’s primary, despite the race for second remaining too close to call between Kasich and Ted Cruz.

Speaking to an energized crowd Tuesday, Kasich said voters are beginning to hear and reward his positive campaign as the race turns to his home state of Ohio.

He’s telling the crowd he got on his hands and knees and “almost kissed the ground” when his plane landed in Cleveland for an event Tuesday afternoon.

Kasich has yet to win a state, but has taken second place in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. Still, his campaign is continuing on with the belief that the primary calendar will become more favorable as more Midwestern and northern states begin voting.

Of his campaign, he says, “we struggled and worked in obscurity for a very long time.”

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10:10 p.m.

Hillary Clinton did not mention the primary contests in Michigan or Mississippi during a rally in Cleveland Tuesday night, instead looking ahead.

Saying she expects a “busy week” in Ohio, which holds its crucial winner-take-all primary on March 15, Clinton said Tuesday that she was “excited to have the campaign building across this state.”

Clinton said she was proud of the campaigns she and Bernie Sanders were running and focused her criticism instead on the Republicans.

“America is great,” she told a cheering crowd, using GOP front-runner Donald Trump’s campaign mantra. She reiterated her call to “make it whole.”

“We are better than what we are being offered by the Republicans,” she said.

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9:55 p.m.

Multiple state-based websites for the Donald Trump campaign contain wording copied exactly from others sources with no attribution.

The Republican presidential front-runner has copied wording for Arkansas, Idaho, Ohio, Colorado, Michigan sites all regarding voter information from outside sources.

In Idaho, the Trump campaign used a 2012 Boise State Public Radio story containing information on where and how to vote. It also cited judicial races no longer taking place and quotes a former Idaho Republican Party official.

Peter Morrill, the radio station’s interim general manager, says no one from the Trump campaign requested permission to use the story.

Meanwhile, in states like Michigan and Arkansas, the same voter information on Trump’s state website is posted on the state’s Secretary of State website.

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9:45 p.m.

Donald Trump is expanding his lead in the race for delegates with wins in Republican primaries in Michigan and Mississippi.

Trump will win at least 21 delegates in Michigan and at least 20 in Mississippi. In Michigan, John Kasich will win at least 15 delegates and Ted Cruz will win at least 12.

There are a total of 150 Republican delegates at stake in four states Tuesday. Voters are also going to the polls in Idaho and Hawaii.

In the overall race for delegates, Trump has 428 and Cruz has 315. Rubio has 151 delegates and Kasich has 52.

It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination for president.