Tuesday night in the United States was once again another Super Tuesday, this time, dubbed Primary Day where both parties say five big states up for grabs. For many candidates, the night was a make or break for their campaign.
Republicans
For Republicans, Marco Rubio’s home state of Florida was up for grabs, a must-win for him. John Kasich was battling for his home state of Ohio. Kasich’s chances looked good going into the fight as Donald Trump –the current party front-runner– was facing a strong campaign in the state to vote for Kasich in order to stop Trump’s campaign.
While Kasich managed to wrangle a victory over Trump by a margin of 10 percent. The victory will do little to increase Kasich’s chances of winning the party nomination, but it did stop Trump from gaining the state’s 66 delegates.
Marco Rubio, however, was not so lucky. He lost Florida to Trump, handing Trump 99 new delegates and officially ending Rubio’s bid for the White House. Just moments after the official results came in, Rubio addressed a crowd in his home state and officially announced he was suspending his run.
Trump managed to win four of the five states and really cemented his lead over Ted Cruz by more than 300 delegates. While the race is still up for grabs, the Republican Party is beginning to fall in line behind the real estate giant.
Democrats
Bernie Sanders, the Democratic candidate, had a much rougher night. Sanders lost all five states to front-runner Hillary Clinton, which all but certainly locked up her party nomination. While Sanders still has a mathematical chance to win the nomination through delegates, statistically speaking, his chances are much more narrow.
Sanders has said he plans to stay in the race all the way to the party’s national convention in July, without massive victories throughout the rest of the primary season, he will head into the convention with far from the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination.
With Primary Day over, most Americans are looking at the race as Clinton versus Trump, while neither party has officially conceded to this fact. With the results of Tuesday night’s primaries being so decisive, don’t be surprised to see the two candidates begin to campaign against each other as if they have already won.
