TRUMP SWEEPS CT, MD, PA, DE, RI YUUG WIN!!!

Trump, Clinton claim early victories in Northeast primaries

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Republican Donald Trump swept to easy victories Tuesday in Connecticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania primaries, keeping the brash billionaire on his narrow path to the GOP nomination. Hillary Clinton carried Maryland's Democratic contest, the first in what her campaign hoped would be a strong night for the former secretary of state.

Votes were also being counted in Delaware and Rhode Island.

Clinton hoped to emerge from Tuesday's contests on the brink of becoming the first woman nominated by a major party. She's already increasingly looking past rival Bernie Sanders, even as the Vermont senator vows to stay in the race until primary voting ends in June.

Still, there were some signs that Sanders' campaign was coming to grips with his difficult position. Top aide Tad Devine said that after Tuesday's results were known, "we'll decide what we're going to do going forward."

Trump's victories padded his delegate totals, yet the Republican contest remains chaotic. The businessman is the only candidate left in the three-person race who could possibly clinch the nomination through the regular voting process, yet he could still fall short of the 1,237 delegates he needs.

GOP rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich are desperately trying to keep him from that magic number and push the race to a convention fight, where complicated rules would govern the nominating process. The Texas senator and Ohio governor even took the rare step of announcing plans to coordinate in upcoming contests to try to minimize Trump's delegate totals.

But that effort did little to stop Trump from a big showing in the Northeast. His campaign was hoping for a clean sweep of all five contests, where 172 Republican delegates were up for grabs.

Cruz spent Tuesday in Indiana, which votes next week. Indiana is one of Cruz's last best chances to slow Trump, and Kasich's campaign is pulling out of the state to give him a better opportunity to do so.

"Tonight this campaign moves back to more favorable terrain," Cruz said during an evening rally in Knightstown, Indiana.

Trump has railed against his rivals' coordination, panning it as "pathetic," and has also cast efforts to push the nomination fight to the convention as evidence of a rigged process that favors political insiders.

Yet there's no doubt Trump is trying to lead a party deeply divided by his candidacy. In Pennsylvania, exit polls showed nearly 4 in 10 GOP voters said they would be excited by Trump becoming president, but the prospect of the real estate mogul in the White House scares a quarter of those who cast ballots in the state's Republican primary.

The exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.

Trump's victory in Pennsylvania guaranteed him 17 of the state's delegates. An additional 54 are elected directly by voters - three in each congressional district. However, their names are listed on the ballot with no information about which presidential candidate they support.

Those delegates will attend the GOP convention as free agents, able to vote for the candidate of their choice.

Democrats award delegates proportionally, which allowed Clinton to maintain her lead over Sanders even as he rattled off a string of wins in previous contests. According to the AP count, Clinton has 1,946 delegates while Sanders has 1,192.

That count includes delegates won in primaries and caucuses, as well as superdelegates - party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice, regardless of how their state votes.

Clinton's campaign is eager for Sanders to tone down his attacks on the former secretary of state if he's going to continue in the race. She's been reminding voters of the 2008 Democratic primary, when she endorsed Barack Obama after a tough campaign and urged her supporters to rally around her former rival.

Ahead of Tuesday's results, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said that while Sanders has run a "unique and powerful" campaign, he does not believe the Vermont senator will be the party's nominee.

According to exit polls, less than a fifth of Democratic voters said they would not support Clinton if she gets the nomination. The exit polls were conducted in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

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Pace reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Michael Rubinkam in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, and Ken Thomas, Laurie Kellman, Chad Day, Stephen Ohlemacher and Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Julie Pace and Catherine Lucey on Twitter at:http://twitter.com/jpaceDC andhttp://twitter.com/catherine-lucey

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Michigan Polls Put Donald Trump Far Ahead Of Ted Cruz, and John Kasich in Fourth Place

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by MICHELLE MOONS6 Mar 20162966

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lead with likely Michigan primary election voters, according to two polls released Sunday.

In the GOP primary race, Trump received 41 per cent of support from respondents, according to a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)had 22 percent support, while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) received just 17 per cent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich came in at 13 per cent. Only 5 per cent were undecided in the poll. Marist surveyed 482 Republican likely primary voters from March 1 to March 3.

A YouGov/CBS poll released Sunday also showed Trump at 39 percent in Michigan, far ahead of Cruz at 24 percent. Rubio scored 16 percent and Kasich was in fourth place, with 15 percent. The March 2 to March 4 poll included 638 likely GOP primary voters.

The two polls are every different from a poll by American Research Group, released late Saturday, which showed Kasich beating Trump, 33 percent to 31 percent.

That ARG poll was conducted March 4 and March 5, and it shows Kasich doubling his mid-February rating of 17 percent. But the poll was based on a small sample of 284 self-identified Republicans, plus responses from 116 independents and Democrats.

When matched up head-to-head, Cruz does better against Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), according to the Marist survey. Clinton beat Trump 53 per cent to 36 per cent in a hypothetical head-to-head race. Cruz polled better than Trump in these match-ups, losing to Clinton by only 7 per cent, said the Marist poll.

The YouGov/CBS poll showed Clinton beating Sanders, 55 percent to 44 percent, in Michigan. That Democratic poll questioned 597 likely Democratic primary voters, and was conducted March 2 to March 4.

Clinton received 72 per cent of support, far outpacing Sanders’ 22 percent support. Democratic voters were more resolute in their decisions with 72 per cent strongly committed to their chosen candidate, 22 percent somewhat committed and a mere 5 per cent that expressed a willingness to vote differently.

Clinton edges up among African American voters with 76 per cent to Sanders’ 21 per cent. However self-identified independent voters strongly favor Sanders over Clinton by a margin of 27 points. The survey also showed that voters under age 45 backed Sanders, while voters above age 45 favored Clinton.

Sunday night brings a Democratic party debate between Clinton and Sanders in Flint, Michigan.

Voters in Michigan and Mississippi will vote on both Republican and Democratic candidates on Tuesday. Republican candidates also will be up for election in Hawaii and Idaho on that day.

Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter@MichelleDiana

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