With big win, Clinton heads to Super Tuesday with momentum

With less than two months to go before Pennsylvania’s primary election, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump remain the favorites to win their respective parties’ nominations for president, according to the latest Franklin & Marshall College poll.

Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders 55 percent to 38 percent on the Democratic side, widening the lead she had before voters began caucusing and voting in primary elections.

Clinton’s lopsided win – she led by 48 points with almost all precincts counted – provided an important boost for her campaign and a moment to wipe away bitter memories of her loss to Barack Obama in SC eight years ago.

Addressing her supporters in South Carolina, Mrs Clinton said: ‘Thank you so much, from one end of this state to another.

The line is a not-so-subtle knock against Trump and his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”. “But we do need to make America whole again”. “In America, when we stand together, there is no barrier too big to break”. “If we elect Donald Trump, all of Obama’s hard work will be wiped out”. Four-hundred-and-fifty-three say they will vote for Clinton to a mere 20 who pledge to vote for Sanders.

Clinton is now primed for Super Tuesday, the 11-state Democratic battle that will put Clinton on friendly and familiar territory in the Deep South.

Al Jazeera said that Clinton’s win “offers a tremendous psychological and political victory” ahead of tomorrow’s contests. “The door is closing fast for Bernie Sanders“, unaligned Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis said.

On This Week, Sanders telegraphed more Super Tuesday defeats among black voters in the day’s southern primaries, but suggested black voters outside the region would be more likely to support him. “Now it’s on to Super Tuesday”.

SC was the first contest in which a majority of the electorate had been made up of minority voters, and Clinton won black voters handily. Among people supporting other candidates, 57 percent said they are committed. With the most delegates at stake so far during primary season, victory in a number of states can give presidential hopefuls enormous momentum going into March.

Clinton held a get-out-the-vote rally at Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, before she was scheduled to head to the Old South Meeting House in Boston for another rally this afternoon.

Sanders, who has energized the party’s liberal wing and brought young people to the polls by attacking income inequality and Wall Street excess, needs a breakthrough win in a key state in the next few weeks to keep his hopes alive.