Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton rack up big Super Tuesday wins

7 of 11 states vote for Hillary, Donald

Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton took big steps toward securing their parties’ presidential nominations on Tuesday with a series of state-by-state victories, but their rivals vowed to keep on fighting.

On Super Tuesday, the 2016 campaign’s biggest day of state-by-state nominating contests, Mr Trump, 69, and Ms Clinton, 68, proved themselves the undisputed frontrunners to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

Now they are under pressure to show they can unify voters in their respective parties before the November 8 election and, in Mr Trump’s case, avoid a potentially disastrous split in the Republican ranks.

US networks projected Mr Trump won seven states, with victories stretching into the Deep South and as far north as Massachusetts, adding to a sense of momentum he had built in January by winning three of the first four contests.

Ms Clinton’s victories in seven states were just as impressive, but in many ways predictable, propelled by African-American voters in southern states like Arkansas, where she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, began their political careers.

Trump’s main rivals, US Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, said they were determined to remain in the race.

Mr Cruz, 45, won Texas and neighbouring Oklahoma, as well as the Alaska caucuses, bolstering his argument that he had the best chance of stopping the New York billionaire. Mr Rubio, the Republican establishment’s favourite, was projected the winner in Minnesota, his first victory in the party’s nominating contests.

Ms Clinton rival Bernie Sanders, a US Senator from Vermont, also won his home state along with Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma but lost to her in Massachusetts, which he had hoped to win. The democratic socialist vowed to pursue the battle for the nomination in the 35 states yet to vote.

The rivals of both Mr Trump and Ms Clinton aim to knock them off their pedestals in February in contests in Michigan, Florida and Illinois.

Ms Clinton, who still faces a well-funded Mr Sanders despite having taken control of the Democratic race, was eager to assail Mr Trump as a way of getting her party’s voters used to the idea of her as the nominee.

“The stakes in this election have never been higher, and the rhetoric we’re hearing on the other side has never been lower,” Clinton told supporters in Miami.