Hillary Clinton secures historic nomination as Bernie Sanders steps aside
PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Clinton officially received the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency Tuesday evening.
Clinton is now the first woman to become the presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party.
Vermont’s delegation voted last, joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders. “I move that Hillary Clinton be selected as the nominee of the Democratic Party for president of the United States,” Sanders said, as the crowd erupted into cheers and waved multicolored “Hillary” signs. A rendition of the song “Happy” began playing as delegates swayed.
The roll call went smoothly and with few signs of protest, as the party appeared to unify after a fractious start to the convention Monday.
Delegates and speakers backing Clinton stressed the historic nature of her nomination. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right, announced Clinton’s name for nomination “on behalf of all the women who have broken down barriers for others.”
“The Democratic Party nominated and elected the first person of color to have ever served in the White House,” said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who seconded Clinton’s nomination. “Tonight, we will shatter that glass ceiling again.”
Clinton’s childhood friend Betsy Ebeling spoke as she cast Illinois’ votes for Clinton, calling it a “historic, wonderful day.”
“This one’s for you, Hill,” she said.
Jerry Emmett, a 102-year-old delegate from Arizona who was born before women had the right to vote in this country, announced her state’s votes for Clinton as the crowd cheered.
There were a few signs of protest from Sanders supporters, but far less than Monday, when they interrupted speakers with boos and chants. A few Sanders delegates walked out ahead of the final roll call, and a delegate held up a sign that said “Rigged,” as Nevada cast its votes.
In nominating speeches, Sanders supporters urged his delegates to keep his movement going. “To my brothers and sisters who have been a part of this historic campaign, I urge you to stay engaged, stay active, stay fired up,” said Paul Feeney, a Sanders supporter who leads the IBEW union in New York. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, who nominated Sanders, said the movement was about “love” and would continue on.
In an emotional speech, Sanders’ brother, Larry Sanders, also teared up as he placed his vote in for his brother from the Democrats abroad delegation. Sanders appeared to also tear up as his brother said their parents would be proud of him.
Clinton frames her historic win as a victory for women’s rights
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Hillary Clinton cemented her status as the first woman to become presumptive presidential nominee of a major American political party on Tuesday night, when the Associated Press projected her the winner in New Jersey’s Democratic primary.
Clinton’s victory in the Garden State ensures she will have more pledged delegates, unbound superdelegates and overall voters than her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. She declared victory at a New York City rally in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
“Thanks to you, we’ve reached a milestone: the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee,” Clinton told her supporters. “Tonight’s victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible.”
The former first lady, senator and secretary of state technically earned her status on Monday, after the AP and multiple other media outlets projected that she earned firm commitments from enough Democratic superdelegates to secure the nomination at the party’s convention next month. However, the AP call was criticized as a “rush to judgment” by the Sanders campaign. Even Clinton’s own team argued that the real “milestone” would come after she secured a majority of the pledged delegates and primary voters.
In addition to New Jersey and North Dakota, voters also headed to the polls in California, New Mexico, Montana, and South Dakota on Tuesday. The AP projected Clinton the winner in New Mexico, but the other states results have not yet been declared. However, even a Sanders sweep would not affect the overall outcome of the race.
Clinton’s victory came just three days after the 97th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote the following year in 1920. Clinton said in her speech that her mother was born on the same day as the amendment’s passage. It was also eight years to the day after Clinton conceded the 2008 Democratic presidential primary to Barack Obama, with a speech in which she famously declared that her supporters helped her put “18 million cracks” in the “glass ceiling.” She referenced that speech Tuesday evening.
“It may be hard to see tonight, but we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now. But don’t worry, we’re not smashing this one,” Clinton quipped.
Clinton also invoked another key moment in feminist history. She noted the first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, also took place in New York in 1948.
Earlier in the evening, her team released the video that played as an introduction to her remarks. It included footage from the women’s suffrage movement, interspersed with footage of female politicians and Clinton supporters. It concluded with a call to “keep making history.”
Sanders is also scheduled to speak on Tuesday evening at an event in California, where polls showed a tight race between him and Clinton. Though it was clear before any results were announced on Tuesday that it would be almost impossible for Sanders to earn more delegates than Clinton, he has pointed to national polls that show he would perform better against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Sanders urged superdelegates who support Clinton to switch sides before the Democratic National Convention next month.
At a news conference Monday, Sanders said he would continue campaigning in the District of Columbia primary, which will be held on June 14. But Clinton is clearly ready to move on.
“I want to congratulate Sen. Sanders for the extraordinary campaign he has run,” she said, praising their primary battle as “very good for the Democratic Party and for America.”
Inside Clinton’s event, her supporters were excited by the significance of her win. Samson Ogunloye, a 70-year-old researcher at Columbia University, described it as a “historic night.”
“I really love it,” Ogunloye said. “After over 200 years, it’s about time.”
Brooklynite Karen Kietzman, 58, described Clinton’s pioneering role as “very important,” though she added, “That’s not the only thing I would vote on.”
Nicolas Santacruz, a nanny who was near the back of the packed crowd, said he was frustrated with the media for projecting Clinton’s victory the day before Tuesday’s election night.
“It’s extremely cool, although it’s annoying that the news took it away from us yesterday,” Santacruz said.
Many of Clinton’s supporters also expressed frustration with Sanders for remaining in the race. A large screen hanging over the crowd showed news broadcasts and audience members booed when NBC News projected Sanders the winner in North Dakota. Some members of the audience at Clinton’s event said they hoped Sanders would begin to get behind Clinton and help her win over the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
“I think he should try and express his platform and continue to express support for more liberal views, but I think it’s time for him to start working with her,” explained Kietzman. “And I think he will because I think she’s going to win big tonight.”
Andrea Zuniga pointed out Clinton quickly endorsed President Obama after she conceded the 2008 Democratic primary to him. Zuniga suggested that Sanders should “take a page from her book” and “work for party unity.”
Ogunloye, the researcher, has a slightly different perspective on Sanders. “What about him? Let him go away. He’s of no use,” he said.
The Clinton campaign certainly seems to be pivoting away from the primary fight against Sanders. Next week, Clinton is scheduled to campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two major swing states in the general election. Clinton campaign aide Lily Adams offered a blunt response when Yahoo News asked if the trip represents a pivot towards the general election.
“Yeah, they’re battleground states,” Adams said.
After Oregon win, a defiant Bernie Sanders vows to fight Hillary Clinton until ‘the last ballot is cast’
Bernie Sanders took another state from Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries with a win in Oregon on Tuesday night. Democratic voters also headed to the polls in Kentucky, but that race remains too close to call.
This victory won’t dent Clinton’s lead, but an undaunted Sanders promised to remain a loud presence heading into the last weeks of the primary at an election night rally.
Heading into these two states, Sanders needed to win over 67 percent of all the remaining pledged delegates to pass Clinton. In other words, he needed a pair of landslides to meaningfully close the gap with Clinton. Anything else meant falling short.
Speaking before results were finalized, Sanders insisted there is a “possibility” he could pull ahead of Clinton. He acknowledged this would be improbable and would take multiple major victories among the six states that will vote on June 7. Nevertheless, Sanders vowed to take his “fight” to the party’s nominating convention, which will take place in Philadelphia in late July.
“We have the possibility. It will be a steep climb, I recognize that, but we have the possibility of going to Philadelphia with a majority of the pledged delegates,” Sanders said. “Some people say that we’ve got a steep hill to climb to do that. And you know what? That is absolutely true. But you know what? Together we have been climbing that steep hill from day one in this campaign.”
Clinton did not make a speech, but she sent out a tweet declaring victory in Kentucky before the Associated Press called the results there. In that brief message, Clinton emphasized party unity.
“We just won Kentucky! Thanks to everyone who turned out. We’re always stronger united,” she wrote.
Polling was scant in both Kentucky and Oregon. Clinton may have been slightly favored to win in Kentucky. Her campaign made a push to win the state in the last two weeks leading up to the primary. Both Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned in Kentucky. Her team also reversed course and launched a television ad campaign in the state after previously indicating it would no longer be spending money on commercials for the primary. This strategic shift by Clinton provided a dramatic example of the protracted battle with Sanders preventing her from making a planned pivot to the general election.
Both Kentucky and Oregon were closed primaries, meaning only previously registered Democrats could vote. This dynamic has generally favored Clinton, while Sanders does better in open primaries. However, Kentucky and Oregon were potentially fertile ground for Sanders. He has done well in the Pacific Northwest, which has a white and liberal electorate. Sanders has also performed well in states similar to Kentucky, including his win in last week’s primary in neighboring West Virginia.
Sanders’ chance of winning the nomination is now incredibly slim. But he has repeatedly vowed to stay in the race until the convention. Sanders had already moved forward on Tuesday. He made his election night speech from California, the biggest remaining state on the primary calendar. And in it, Sanders made it clear he isn’t going anywhere.
“Many of the pundits and politicians, they say Bernie Sanders should drop out, the people of California should not have the right to determine who the next president will be,” Sanders said. “Well, let me be as clear as I can be: We are in till the last ballot is cast!”
And as long as Sanders remains in the Democratic primary, he presents an obstacle for Clinton.
Sanders and his team have increasingly criticized the Democratic Party’s primary process and leadership. This dissent in the ranks could make it harder for Clinton to ultimately achieve party unity. Though Clinton dominated early in the primary calendar and in the delegate-rich states of New York and Florida, she has been unable to score a big enough margin to finish off Sanders.
The Vermont senator has said he hopes to help reform the way Democrats choose their nominees going forward. He wants to eliminate closed primaries in favor of open races. Sanders also called for the party to “rethink” its superdelegate system. The Democrats have over 700 superdelegates, party officials and elected leaders who may pick a candidate regardless of how their respective states voted. Clinton currently has an overwhelming lead among these party insiders, with over 500 superdelegates, while Sanders has only 40.
Along with calling for reform, the Sanders campaign has raised questions about voting issues in various states won by Clinton. Sanders’ calls for superdelegate reform and other critiques of the process have fanned flames of anger among some of his supporters who believe Clinton has had an unfair advantage. However, the elements of the primary process Sanders has disputed do not seem to be the reasons he is in second place.
Superdelegates are generally expected to back whoever gets the most pledged delegates from the state primaries, and Sanders has a significant deficit even counting only pledged delegates. A CNN analysis published Tuesday showed that Sanders would still be behind Clinton if some of the reforms he’s pushing for were already in place for this year’s election. And Sanders’ campaign has actually attempted to take advantage of the current system by encouraging superdelegates to switch sides in spite of the election results. The Sanders team’s superdelegate pitch is based on some national polls showing he would perform better than Clinton in a hypothetical matchup against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
Tensions between Sanders supporters and the party establishment boiled over during the weekend at Nevada’s state Democratic convention. There were allegations that furious Sanders supporters resorted to throwing chairs and making death threats online over disagreements with party leadership. Clinton won Nevada in February, but Sanders’ campaign made a push to win over delegates and emerge out of the convention ahead.
And Sanders hasn’t exactly pushed for peace. On Tuesday evening, he issued a striking statement in which he said it was “nonsense” for local Nevada Democrats to suggest his campaign has a “penchant for violence.” He also accused the state’s Democratic leadership of using “its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.”
“I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals,” Sanders said. “But when we speak of violence, I should add here that months ago, during the Nevada campaign, shots were fired into my campaign office in Nevada, and the apartment housing complex my campaign staff lived in was broken into and ransacked.”
Clinton may need to heal some of these wounds if she manages to fend off Sanders and secure the nomination. And while Clinton remains in a contentious primary, Trump has already cemented his presumptive-nominee status.
In a fundraising email sent to supporters last week, top Clinton campaign staffer Marlon Marshall lamented the position they are in. Marshall explained that Clinton is essentially fighting a two-front war.
“We’re opening offices every week in battleground states like Ohio and Florida, AND we’re fighting every day before the California primary,” Marshall wrote, adding, “Here’s the deal: Bernie’s not opening field offices in Ohio, because he’s only focused on the primary. Donald Trump isn’t opening field offices in California, because he’s only focused on the general. We’re the only ones running two races, which means we need this team to step up twice as much.”
Clinton’s latest win makes it even more likely she will survive this dual battle for now. But it also seems clear her inability to decisively finish Sanders off earlier will cost her in the meantime. During his speech in California, Sanders was briefly interrupted by supporters who chanted “Bernie or bust!” The slogan is popular among Sanders backers who say they will never vote for Clinton.
Sanders didn’t respond to the chant. He simply smiled.
Trump Wins in Indiana, Setting Path to GOP Nod as Cruz Exits Race
ByCarrie Dann | NBC
Donald Trump has won the Indiana Republican presidential primary, crushing the hopes of GOP foes who waged a frantic campaign to halt his march to the party’s nomination.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump’s chief rival, suspended his presidential campaign hours after Trump was declared the winner, telling supporters “we left it all on the field in Indiana.”
“The voters chose another path. And so with a heavy heart, but with boundless optimism for the long-term future of our nation, we are suspending our campaign,” he said.
The win and Cruz’s exit sets Trump on a likely path to secure the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure his party’s nomination before the convention in Cleveland this summer. Trump is poised to easily clear the decisive threshold that Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich pledged to block from his reach.
In a memo earlier Tuesday, Kasich’s campaign manager said that the Ohio governor would fight on in the 2016 race. But he lags even farther behind Cruz in the delegate count and is mathematically eliminated from capturing a majority of delegates.
The Indiana contest between the Democrats remains too close to call.
But frontrunner Hillary Clinton leads rival Bernie Sanders by a significant number of total votes and delegates nationwide, and the results of Indiana’s primary are not expected to change her path to the Democratic nomination. Sanders has pledged to compete until the final primary contests in June.
Trump’s victory in Indiana was particularly stinging for Cruz, who employed a series of unorthodox campaign tactics in a last-minute effort to derail Trump’s chances in the Midwestern state.
Together, pro-Cruz and anti-Trump forces spent more than $6 million on television advertising in the Hoosier State in the effort to stall Trump’s march towards the Republican nomination. Cruz and Kasich announced an alliance last month to maximize opposition to Trump in remaining primary states, a strategy which backfired badly among Republican voters skeptical of a plan that Trump branded as “collusion.”
In an unusual move, Cruz announced that former HP chief Carly Fiorina would be his running mate if he captures the GOP nod — despite being mathematically eliminated from getting a majority of Republican delegates at all.
And in a fiery press conference Tuesday, a visibly upset Cruz derided Trump as “a pathological liar,” a “narcissist” and a “serial philanderer” whose electoral success to date has led the country “staring at the abyss.”
“Donald Trump laughs at the people of this state, laughs, bullies, attacks, insults,” he said in remarks responding to Trump’s unsubstantiated theory that Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. “I don’t believe that’s America.”
Trump took a less-than-conciliatory tone when he responded to Cruz’s charges on Twitter Tuesday evening, calling his rival “wacko.”
Clinton has another big night and is poised to become first female major party presidential nominee
At the Philadelphia Convention Center, Clinton took the stage to the song “Eye of the Tiger.” In a nod to the movie “Rocky,” which is set in the city, she declared the evening a “great night” and looked ahead to the official end of the primary process.
“With your help, we’re going to come back to Philadelphia for the Democratic convention with the most votes and the most pledged delegates,” Clinton said. “And we will unify our party to win this election and build an America where we can all rise together, an America where we lift each other up instead of tearing each other down.”
Clinton’s remarks included several lines that have not been in her standard stump speech thus far, in which she acknowledged the surprisingly strong challenge Sanders has mounted and some of the core issues of his platform. After starting as a long shot, Sanders earned a string of victories against Clinton by painting her as insufficiently progressive and criticizing her ties to Wall Street and corporate megadonors. In her speech, Clinton argued that Democrats are largely in agreement on these issues.
“We will build on a strong progressive tradition, from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama, and I applaud Sen. Sanders and his millions of supporters for challenging us to get unaccountable money out of our politics and to give greater emphasis to closing the gap of inequality,” Clinton said. “I know together we will get that done, because whether you support Sen Sanders or you support me, there’s much more that unites us than divides us.”
After the speech, Clinton’s campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri spoke to Yahoo News. Palmieri discussed the Democratic primary in the past tense.
“We had a number of wins tonight. We’re very grateful for them. It’s more clear that she’ll be the nominee. She’s grateful to have won the state of Pennsylvania and to be coming back here in 14 weeks to accept her party’s nomination,” Palmieri said, adding, “We are looking back now on the primary … we’re winding down. We have — there’s, I believe, seven weeks left to go in a process that’s been going on for a year. And, as we look back on how the primary unfolded … the process, we believe was to our party’s benefit and to our campaign’s benefit.”
Palmieri said the primary made Clinton a “more tested, stronger candidate” and also left the Democratic Party “positioned well for the general.”
“The issues that were raised in our primary and the issues that brought more than 10 million voters out to vote for Hillary Clinton are the same economic issues that we think are going to be forefront in the general election and on the minds of general election voters,” said Palmieri. “So, that is, how do you increase wages? How do you create jobs? How can you help people afford college? How can you make their health care more affordable?”
Palmieri went on to argue that there was no need for Clinton’s campaign to “make a general election pivot” and “talk about different issues.”
“For the Democrats, that’s what our primary has been about. It’s been about the same kind of economic issues, as well as issues of national security, that we think voters across the board care about,” Palmieri said.
On the other side of the aisle, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump earned a sweep on Tuesday night, with wins in all five states. Yahoo News asked Palmieri if the Clinton campaign would be glad to face Trump in the general election rather than another GOP candidate.
“That is on the list of things I have no control over. We will deal with… whoever they choose,” Palmieri said. “But whoever they choose, their personalities might be different, but they are similar on issues Hillary Clinton laid out tonight. They all want to overturn Roe v. Wade, none of them believe that we should raise the minimum wage, they’re not going to combat climate change, not going to fight to overturn Citizens United.”
Heading into Tuesday’s contests, the Sanders campaign indicated this would be a pivotal turning point in the Democratic race. In an interview with the New York Times, Sanders’ senior adviser, Tad Devine, said his team would re-examine its approach based on the night’s returns. However, Devine was clear that Sanders would remain in the running, no matter what.
“If we are sitting here and there’s no sort of mathematical way to do it, we will be upfront about that,” Devine said. “If we have a really good day, we are going to continue to talk about winning most of the pledged delegates, because we will be on a path toward it. If we don’t get enough today to make it clear that we can do it by the end, it’s going to be hard to talk about it. That’s not going to be a credible path. Instead, we will talk about what we intend to do between now and the end, and how we can get there.”
Sanders took the stage at a packed arena in Huntington, W.Va., shortly after the results were announced in Maryland, and told his supporters they are “revolutionaries” who can be “powerful” if they take on the country’s ultrawealthy. As he has throughout the primary, Sanders mocked the media for dismissing him as a “fringe candidate” when he jumped into the race a year ago.
“We’re taking on the most powerful political organization in America,” Sanders said, referring to Clinton’s campaign.
He emphasized the 17 contests his campaign has won so far. Sanders also pointed to poll results to make the case he would perform better than Clinton in the general election, an argument his campaign has made as it attempts to persuade delegates to switch sides. He referred to national polls that show him performing better against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump than Clinton does and indications that he has greater support from independents.
“That is the point that I hope the delegates to the Democratic convention fully understand,” he said. “In the general election, everyone, Democrat and Republican, has a right to vote for the president.”
Sanders did not criticize Clinton for her ties to Wall Street or paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, although he has brought up those issues throughout his campaign, including just last week. This is a pronounced change in tone, with Sanders making the case for why he is a better nominee than Clinton, while backing away from direct attacks on her that could hurt her in the general election.
After his speech, the candidate released a statement explicitly shifting his focus from winning the nomination to fighting “for a progressive party platform” at the Democratic National Convention in July.
Trump’s ‘very good’ night: ‘I consider myself the presumptive nominee’
NEW YORK — Donald Trump took another step toward clinching the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, easily sweeping Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut in the latest round of GOP primaries.
But Trump’s victories, while commanding, did not bring an end to the Republican contest. Though the real estate mogul and former reality television star was expected to take home the majority of the 172 delegates at stake in Tuesday’s voting, adding to his already sizable lead, Pennsylvania’s delegate rules stopped Trump from making a clean sweep.
While Trump won Pennsylvania’s statewide vote, clinching 17 of the state’s 71 delegates, another 54 were officially “unbound,” meaning they can make their own decision about which candidate to support at the party’s convention in July in Cleveland. That technicality gave a glimmer of hope to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who are trying to stop Trump from getting the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination before the convention.
Still, Trump characterized his wins Tuesday as proof of his unstoppable momentum. Speaking to reporters at his election night event at Trump Tower, the GOP frontrunner said he considered the race “effectively over” because Cruz and Kasich “cannot win.”
“I consider myself the presumptive nominee,” Trump said. “If you look honestly, Sen. Cruz and Gov. Kasich should really get out the race… They should get out of the race, and we should heal the Republican Party.”
Although Trump now leads Cruz by more than 300 delegates, neither the Texas senator nor Kasich seem interested in ending their quest for the White House. The contest now shifts to Indiana, a state that could make or break the #NeverTrump movement.
There, Trump narrowly leads Cruz in a state that is viewed as friendly territory for the Texas senator. And on Tuesday night, Cruz took his campaign to the New Castle Fieldhouse, the legendary home of the Indiana Hoosiers basketball team, where he cast himself as an underdog unwilling to give up the fight.
“Tonight, this campaign moves back toward favorable terrain,” Cruz declared. “There is nothing Hoosiers cannot do.”
When Trump heads to Indiana on Wednesday, he will attempt to one-up Cruz in terms of basketball pandering. He plans to campaign with former Hoosiers coach Bobby Knight, a beloved sports figure in the state who endorsed Trump several months ago.
But Trump will first make a stop in Washington, D.C., where he’s scheduled to deliver a foreign policy speech — the first of several policy speeches he has promised to make as he attempts to transition from a primary to a general election candidate.
The candidate declined to go into specifics of what exactly he would talk about Wednesday. But he did reject the idea that he will tone down his rhetoric — pushing back on his convention manager Paul Manafort’s comments to members of the Republican National Committee last week that suggested Trump is merely playing “a part” and would embrace a more “presidential” tone in the coming weeks.
“I am me. I am not playing a part,” Trump said Tuesday night, adding that he had received dozens of messages from supporters saying, “Please don’t change, please don’t change.” “If you have a football team, and you are winning… Why would I change?” he said.
Trump hits 50 percent in national GOP poll for the first time
While Republican frontrunner Donald Trump still needs more than 300 delegates to reach 1,237 — the magic number needed to secure the GOP presidential nomination — he has finally reached a key milestone in his bid for the White House: support from half of the country’s likely Republican voters.
According to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey national tracking poll released Tuesday, 50 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they support the real estate mogul’s candidacy, compared to the 26 percent who support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and the 17 percent who are backing Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Trump’s double-digit lead over his GOP rivals is one reason Cruz and Kasich banded together this week in an effort to block the brash billionaire from winning the GOP nomination.
Excluding independents, Trump now enjoys 49 percent support among Republican voters, up six points from last week, when the same poll was conducted prior to his resounding primary victory in New York.
Trump nearly reached 50 percent in a CNN/ORC poll conducted in February, when he led Florida Sen. Marco Rubio by 33 points (49 percent to 16 percent) among Republican and Republican-leaning voters.
Crossing the 50 percent threshold is important for Trump, who has hovered in mid-to-high-40 percent range in recent weeks — leading some to speculate that the White House hopeful had hit his ceiling with GOP voters.
In a statement blasting the Cruz-Kasich pact Monday, Trump complained that he “would be receiving in excess of 60% of the vote except for the fact that there were so many candidates” running against him.
On the Democratic side, frontrunner Hillary Clinton is ahead of Bernie Sanders nationally, but her lead has narrowed to just 2 points, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Monday shows.
According to the survey, the former secretary of state has the support of 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, while Sanders has the support of 48 percent. In the same poll conducted last month, Clinton held a 9-point lead over the Vermont senator.
Heading into Tuesday’s primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, recent polls show Trump and Clinton leading in all five states — where wins would put each candidate closer to clinching their respective party’s nomination.
Ex-Clinton backer emerges as fierce Sanders surrogate
Former Ohio state lawmaker Nina Turner has emerged as one of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s most prominent surrogates, adding another twist to a political career that has rankled the Democratic establishment at every turn.
Hardly a day goes by where the energetic Turner doesn’t appear on television, at a forum or at a rally touting Sanders’s record or defending him against criticism from rival Hillary Clinton
Turner is also one of several prominent African-American supporters working to help the Vermont senator make inroads with black voters, who have so far delivered huge victories to Clinton across the South and helped her build a substantial delegate lead.
Turner’s efforts are all the more surprising because she was once a Clinton supporter.
Former President Bill Clinton endorsed Turner’s 2014 run for Ohio secretary of State, and Turner worked as an unpaid volunteer for Ready for Hillary, the group that laid the groundwork for Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Last November, however, Turner switched allegiances, taking a leave of absence from a paid role with the Ohio Democratic Party to be an unpaid advocate for Sanders’s campaign.
“It came down to some soul-searching,” Turner said in an interview with The Hill. “It was actually my husband who said, ‘Baby, I think you should give Sen. Sanders a look. I believe he’s your candidate, because he has the same righteous indignation you have. He stands up for people the way you like to stand up for people.’ ”
Turner said she was at first emotionally drawn to Sanders, moved by his spirit and energy on the campaign trail.
But Turner said she became sold on Sanders when she realized their policy priorities were in alignment.
Turner was raised in Cleveland by a single mother on welfare who lacked access to adequate healthcare and died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Turner was 22 at the time, but her youngest sibling was only 12.
Last week, Sanders questioned whether Clinton was qualified to be president. Bill Clinton called the remark a case of “subconscious” sexism and said his wife is being held to a higher standard because she’s a woman. Turner countered that if that was an example of sexism, perhaps voters should look back to Hillary Clinton’s attacks against then-Sen. Barack Obama from their 2008 primary contests. “She intimated in the strongest way that he was unqualified. Is that racist?” Turner asked. “If they want to do the dance, let’s do the dance, because I was highly offended, as were African-Americans across this country.
The oldest of seven children, Turner emerged from those conditions to become the first in her family to graduate from college. Her son, a police officer in Cleveland, is now a second-generation college graduate.
Turner said universal healthcare and access to affordable higher education are two of her driving issues. She was spurred to back Sanders by his argument that healthcare is a human right and by his proposal to make college tuition at public universities free.
“It was the juxtaposition of my life and what I’ve had to endure so far and how Sen. Sanders stands up for the working poor,” Turner said.
In becoming an advocate for Sanders, Turner has completely turned her back on the Clintons.
In the interview with The Hill, Turner didn’t hold back, criticizing Bill and Hillary Clinton as overly eager to accuse Sanders of sexism.
“It’s desperate,” Turner said. “They really have some nerve.”
Last week, Sanders questioned whether Clinton was qualified to be president. Bill Clinton called the remark a case of “subconscious” sexism and said his wife is being held to a higher standard because she’s a woman.
Turner countered that if that was an example of sexism, perhaps voters should look back to Hillary Clinton’s attacks against then-Sen. Barack Obama from their 2008 primary contests.
“She intimated in the strongest way that he was unqualified. Is that racist?” Turner asked. “If they want to do the dance, let’s do the dance, because I was highly offended, as were African-Americans across this country.”
Turner also noted that Bill Clinton referred to one Black Lives Matter protester who confronted him at an event last week as “girl.”
“Was that sexist?” she asked. “Or is sexism only reserved for white women?”
And Turner rebuked Bill Clinton for getting into a heated exchange with those same Black Lives Matter protesters over the impact of the 1994 crime bill he signed into law. “It was horrible,” she said.
“You’re treating them in a way that’s not respectful to our feelings about these issues,” she continued. “You may not agree with how we feel, but that’s the way some of us feel … that those policies [Clinton] pushed, whether the crime bill or welfare reform, had a disproportionately negative impact on the African-American community that we still have not recovered from to this day.”
Turner said the transition from Clinton supporter to Sanders surrogate has been rough at times.
As a former card-carrying member of the Democratic establishment in Ohio — in addition to working for the state party, she has served as a Cleveland city councilwoman and state senator — Turner said she’s been ostracized by some of her former colleagues.
One woman, Turner said, openly reprimanded her at a Planned Parenthood event, saying she had an obligation to help elect the first woman president.
“It was heavy; it was really heavy,” Turner recalled. “I remember folks asking me if I was sure, do you have to do this? Some had concerns about my political future. That’s how serious this was.”
But Turner said she’s not worried about having made an enemy out of one of the nation’s most powerful political dynasties.
“I’ve been in this game a long time, and I’ve accomplished a lot in this world without the Clintons,” Turner, 48, said.
“All of the things I’ve accomplished, the Clintons were nowhere in it,” she continued. “So for me to cower in the corner and live in fear about what they may or may not do, that’s not me. My fate is controlled by the Almighty, and they are not the Almighty. They may have some influence on this Earth, but they are not the Almighty.” It’s not the first time Turner has bucked the establishment.
In 2011, she infuriated party leaders for mulling a primary challenge to Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), though she backed down.
Before that, she was the only black politician to endorse a Cuyahoga County government restructuring bill. A newspaper in the region with predominantly black readership ran an editorial cartoon depicting Turner as Aunt Jemima.
“That was the worst public thing to happen to me,” Turner said.
And Turner’s shift from Clinton to Sanders is also not the first time she’s foregone what looked like a sure thing in favor of a long shot.
Turner passed on running for reelection in her last year of eligibility for the state senate, opting instead to challenge incumbent Republican John Husted for secretary of State.
She got trounced in what was a big year for Republicans but emerged as a favorite to run for mayor of Cleveland in 2017.
“We’ll see,” Turner said, noting that she admires current Mayor Frank Jackson (D) and won’t challenge him if he seeks a fourth term.
“I’ve got my hands really full right now, and I’m really focused right now,” she said. “I’m humbled that so many people not just in my city, not just in my state, but all across the country really want to see me back in the elected ministry. I’d love to be back there.”