Clinton and Trump win big in Arizona, but Sanders and Cruz keep pressure on

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both won convincing victories in the Arizona presidential primaries on Tuesday, cementing their status as the frontrunners in Republican and Democratic races that are a long way from being settled. In a sign both contests are shaping up to be long and drawn-out bids for delegates, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders, the main Republican and Democratic challengers, also notched significant victories in western states. Cruz swept to victory in Utah, winning more than 50% of the votes, a pivotal threshold under Utah’s Republican caucus rules, which ensured the Texas senator secured all of the state’s 40 delegates. Sanders also registered a resounding victory in Utah and added a second triumph in Idaho, a state where only Democrats were holding a contest on Tuesday. However, Arizona was the largest delegate prize on Tuesday and was also the most fiercely contested, with Trump, Cruz, Clinton and Sanders all criss-crossing the state in recent days in a last-ditch effort to shore up support. The strength of the victories by the Republican and Democratic frontrunners in the large, diverse state will add to the growing sense they are nominees-in-waiting, even if they have months of protracted contests ahead of them. The Grand Canyon State is the largest purely winner-takes-all state left in the Republican calendar, and Trump’s victory in the state ensured he won all 58 delegates. At 11pm local time, with close to half of Arizona votes counted, Trump was on 47%, compared to Cruz’s 23%. Ohio Governor John Kasich was third, with around 10%. On the Democratic side, Clinton had a similarly large margin of victory, with 60% to Sanders’ 38%. At her victory speech at a rally in Seattle the former secretary of state immediately positioned herself as the Democratic commander-in-chief in waiting, dwelling only briefly on the election results in order to focus instead on a critique of how her Republican rivals responded to the terrorist attacks in Brussels earlier in the day. Clinton contrasted what she claimed would be her “strong, smart and above all steady” leadership in the White House with the reaction of Republicans to the tragedy in Europe. Trump, who recently said the US should reconsider its involvement in the Nato defense alliance, a cornerstone of Washington’s foreign policy, responded to the terrorist atrocity by repeating his call to waterboard terrorism suspects. Cruz, meanwhile, was widely criticized for reacting to the attacks with a call for law enforcement patrols of Muslim neighborhoods. “In the face of terror, America doesn’t panic, we don’t build walls or turn our backs on our allies,” Clinton said. “We can’t throw out everything that we know about what works and what doesn’t and start torturing people.” She added: “What Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and others are suggesting is not only wrong, it is dangerous.” Appearing at a rally in San Diego before the Utah and Idaho results were in, Sanders did not mention his loss in Arizona, instead focusing on his expected wins. “We have now won 10 primaries and caucuses,” a hoarse-sounding Sanders told supporters. “And unless I’m mistaken, we’re going to win a couple more tonight.” His forecast was correct, and the strength of Sanders’ victories in Utah and Idaho, where early voting returns indicated he could win as much as 70% of the votes, will likely energize his supporters. The senator from Vermont is also projected to perform well in the last three Democratic states to hold contests in March: Alaska, Hawaii and Washington. However, those wins are unlikely to put a decisive dent in the Democratic frontrunner’s lead delegates. Clinton’s lead in delegates selected through primaries and caucuses is bolstered from the pledged support of party officials that also get a say in the nomination process. With superdelegates included, Clinton went into Tuesday with 1,630 delegates compared to Sanders’ 870. Sanders contends that superdelegates could still change their minds before the convention and insist the second half of the primary calendar includes states that are better suited to him. Still, Clinton operatives are privately confident that on the current trajectory the senator from Vermont will face intense pressure to pull out of the race by early summer. The Republican race appears more complicated still. While Trump looks on course to end the campaign with the most delegates of any candidate, he may not have the 1,237 required to win the GOP nomination outright. That would force the billionaire to make the case for his presidency in a contested convention where party elites, many of whom who are hostile to his candidacy, could hold sway. With Trump’s projected delegate count expected to come down to the wire, results such as his loss to Cruz in Utah could, later down the line, prove pivotal. Utah’s large Mormon population always made it steep challenge for Trump, but the race showed signs that Cruz, a conservative stalwart once loathed by the Republican establishment, is starting to mop-up its support. The self-styled Tea Party senator is desperate to absorb supporters of candidates who have dropped out such as Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and Jeb Bush. In Utah, he received the unlikely backing of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney. Cruz’s bid for the mantle of Trump’s challenger-in-chief is complicated by Kasich, the third Republican still in the race and, he argues, the only moderate voice. His continued presence in the race could sap at the Texan senator’s pool of potential anti-Trump voters. Cruz is also hampered by a view among some in the party that that would be no more electable than Trump in a general election – and possibly less so. Trump and Cruz were both on the east coast, where most results did not start filtering until late Tuesday night. Neither had scheduled news conferences or rallies to react to the results. Instead, on a night when world leaders were grappling with the repercussions of the terrorist bombings in Brussels, which killed at least 31 people and injuring up to 230, Trump and Cruz ended up in an unseemly Twitter squabble over their wives. Trump wrongly accusing Cruz of being behind an ad in Utah that used a nude photograph of his wife Melania from a GQ shoot 15 years ago and added: “Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!” Cruz responded: “Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought.” Thanks for reading.

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