‘Super Saturday’ splits votes among frontrunners and challengers

The “Super Saturday” presidential nominating contests in five states – four in the Republican race and three in the Democratic – threw up mixed results that showed that neither fight is going to be won quickly and that the leading challengers have yet to answer lingering questions.

Voters in Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine and Nebraska gave two-state victories apiece to Texas senator Ted Cruz and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders as they chase their respective Republican and Democratic frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Cruz won the Republican caucuses in Kansas and Maine, equalling Trump’s wins in the Kentucky caucuses and the Louisiana primary on the night. It was the best day of the Texan’s presidential campaign, building a momentum that showed he may yet stop Trump’s march.

Sanders won the Kansas and Nebraska primaries, while Clinton took the night’s biggest prize – Louisiana. The southern state had the largest share of delegates – who will formally choose the party nominee at a convention in July – to be picked up on the day. The Louisiana win, despite Sanders winning by two states to one from the day’s contests, helped Clinton to take 55 delegates from Super Saturday to Sanders 49 delegates.

She still has a commanding lead of 1,121 to Sanders’s 479, including super-delegates, party officials and elected leaders who have committed themselves to Clinton. On the Republican side, Cruz topped the day’s delegate count, 66 to Trump’s 51, closing the gap on the businessman’s delegate lead, which stands at 385 to 298.

Speaking to reporters and supporters on Saturday night from one of his golf resorts in Florida, Trump threw some of his favourite digs at Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio, whose vote collapsed on Saturday, coming a distant third in three states and fourth in Maine.

The billionaire called on Rubio to drop out of the race before the winner-takes-all state in Florida on March 15th that should either push the senator on or out of the race. “I want Ted one-on-one,” said Trump.

He congratulated Cruz on his two state wins but poked fun at "Lyin' Ted." "He should do well in Maine because it's very close to Canada, " said the entertainment mogul, referring to his birthplace in Calgary.

Cruz’s Saturday performances, leaving him with six state victories to Trump’s 12, showed that he is continuing to make the strongest case as the anti-Trump alternative that the party should rally around if it has any chance of blocking the insurgent businessman’s path to the nomination.

Holding up his 25-point victory in Kansas, his biggest margin win of the campaign, Cruz said: “What we are seeing in Kansas is a manifestation of a real shift in momentum.”

The Texan's strategy is founded on his belief that he will be able to draw out tens of millions of conservatives to the polls that would sweep him to the Republican nomination and the White House.

He certainly has strong support amongst these voters, underlined by his win in a straw poll of staunch conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual meeting outside Washington on Saturday.

His state wins, however, have come in caucuses where turnout is lower and well-organised conservatives play an outsized role and in southern primaries in and around his home state of Texas, where Republican voters are predominantly Christian and conservative. Cruz has to show he can win outside of his comfort zone.

Sanders, too, on the Democratic side, needs to show he can extend his support into more ethnically diverse states and take some of Clinton’s base among African-American and Latino voters. The two states he won on Super Saturday are more than 85 per cent white populations.

The self-professed democratic socialist looks like following the path Clinton took against Barack Obama in 2008 – chasing him all the way to the summer but never managing to close a lead among the delegates.

Sanders has said he will fare better among African-American voters outside the American south, such as California and New York. The first test of this claim will arrive tomorrow with the primary in Michigan, where Sanders's crusade against economic inequality should find favour in a state that has struggled economically.

Clinton's championing of the majority-black population in the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan may muddy Sanders's appeal.

won the Kansas and Nebraska primaries, while Clinton took the night’s biggest prize – Louisiana. The southern state had the largest share of delegates – who will formally choose the party nominee at a convention in July – to be picked up on the day. The Louisiana win, despite Sanders winning by two states to one from the day’s contests, helped Clinton to take 55 delegates from Super Saturday to Sanders 49 delegates.

She still has a commanding lead of 1,121 to Sanders’s 479, including super-delegates, party officials and elected leaders who have committed themselves to Clinton. On the Republican side, Cruz topped the day’s delegate count, 66 to Trump’s 51, closing the gap on the businessman’s delegate lead, which stands at 385 to 298.

Speaking to reporters and supporters on Saturday night from one of his golf resorts in Florida, Trump threw some of his favourite digs at Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio, whose vote collapsed on Saturday, coming a distant third in three states and fourth in Maine.

The billionaire called on Rubio to drop out of the race before the winner-takes-all state in Florida on March 15th that should either push the senator on or out of the race. “I want Ted one-on-one,” said Trump.

He congratulated Cruz on his two state wins but poked fun at “Lyin’ Ted.” “He should do well in Maine because it’s very close to Canada,” said the entertainment mogul, referring to his birthplace in Calgary.

Cruz’s Saturday performances, leaving him with six state victories to Trump’s 12, showed that he is continuing to make the strongest case as the anti-Trump alternative that the party should rally around if it has any chance of blocking the insurgent businessman’s path to the nomination.

Holding up his 25-point victory in Kansas, his biggest margin win of the campaign, Cruz said: “What we are seeing in Kansas is a manifestation of a real shift in momentum.”

The Texan’s strategy is founded on his belief that he will be able to draw out tens of millions of conservatives to the polls that would sweep him to the Republican nomination and the White House.

He certainly has strong support amongst these voters, underlined by his win in a straw poll of staunch conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual meeting outside Washington on Saturday.

His state wins, however, have come in caucuses where turnout is lower and well-organised conservatives play an outsized role and in southern primaries in and around his home state of Texas, where Republican voters are predominantly Christian and conservative. Cruz has to show he can win outside of his comfort zone.

Sanders, too, on the Democratic side, needs to show he can extend his support into more ethnically diverse states and take some of Clinton’s base among African-American and Latino voters. The two states he won on Super Saturday are more than 85 per cent white populations.

The self-professed democratic socialist looks like following the path Clinton took against Barack Obama in 2008 – chasing him all the way to the summer but never managing to close a lead among the delegates.

Sanders has said he will fare better among African-American voters outside the American south, such as California and New York. The first test of this claim will arrive tomorrow with the primary in Michigan, where Sanders’s crusade against economic inequality should find favour in a state that has struggled economically.

Clinton’s championing of the majority-black population in the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan may muddy Sanders’s appeal.