Politics

Is It #SuperTuesday Again? Have a Liveblog!

It’s that time again! This race is getting increasingly polarizing, after an intense weekend for Donald Trump. Tonight doesn’t look like it will provide any relief in the form of major Trump upsets – but who knows!

Here goes!

7:52 AM ET

Good morning! Looks like the votes are in for Illinois, and Clinton squeaked out a couple percentage points over Sanders! Delegates are awarded proportionally, so the delegates will be split just about 50/50. 

In  Missouri, both races are still too close to call a winner with 99% of votes counted.  Trump & Clinton hold extremely narrow leads over Cruz & Sanders – in fact it’s within .2% on both sides. 

12:00 AM ET

Alright, folks – some of us have day jobs to get to in the morning and need our sleep. We’ll update in the morning on the Illinois (Dem) and Missouri (Dem/Rep) races! Until then, keep an eye on Real Clear Politics for real-time results.

11:45 PM ET

With 91% of votes counted in Missouri, both races are still too close to call:

Sanders leads by about 11,000 votes right now, while Trump is still up by less than 3,000 votes. I’m fairly certain this is the closest primary race we’ve seen so far.

11:21 PM ET

Here’s a “could be worse, but still pretty messed up” statistic for you. 20% of Democratic voters in Illinois said the candidate’s gender was a factor in some degree when they picked their candidate:

11:15 PM ET

More depressing exit polls:

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/709913295482793985

11:13 PM ET

Important, but unsurprising tidbit from FiveThirtyEight. “Discontented” voters favor Trump:

There’s a lot of angst out there, particularly among Republican voters, and it’s showing up in exit polls. Perhaps not surprisingly, Trump is doing well with the more discontented voters:

10:58 PM ET

This Missouri race is ridiculously close. With 68% of votes in, Trump leads Cruz by .2% – or less than 3000 votes. Wow.

Image Source: Real Clear Politics
10:46 PM ET

Ugh, Joe Scarborough took a quick break from fawning over Donald Trump to tell Hillary Clinton to “smile.” Women everywhere rolled their eyes.

10:40 PM ET

Quick Delegate Recap!

Republicans: We’re still missing Missouri, but after his big wins tonight, Trump is now leading the pack with 619 delegates. Cruz is still in second (394 delegates) and Kasich rounds out the gang of three with 136. Technically, Rubio (who dropped out tonight) is still in third place, with 167 delegates. This amuses me to no end. Republicans need 1,237 delegates to win the nomination, meaning Trump now has half the delegates he needs to put a bow on this thing.

Democrats: No word yet on Illinois or Missouri, but Clinton still leads Sanders 1001 to 666 (insert Anti-Christ joke here). That isn’t including superdelegates, where Clinton’s leading Bernie by more than double – 1488 to 701.  Democrats need 2,382 delegates to win, so Clinton is now more than halfway there with two states to go tonight.

10:26 PM ET

Still too close to call over on the Democratic side in Illinois, and on both sides in Missouri. Both Missouri races are less than two percentage points apart. On the Dem side, Sanders is currently squeezing ahead of Clinton, while Trump is barely leading Cruz over on the Republican side.

The Republican winner takes all in Missouri, so Trump could get another 52 delegates here if his current lead works out. It’s a bit more complex on the Democratic side, though. Missouri’s 71 Democratic delegates are awarded proportionally to anyone who gets more than 15% of the vote, and assuming the race stays this close, it’ll essentially be 50/50. Still, a technical win in at least one state tonight would be a big PR win for Sanders, who hasn’t won a state yet tonight.

10:10 PM ET

Here’s a great question we got on Twitter about the Marcio Rubio, wanting to know why Rubio’s dropout email had a Donate button. Here’s the answer, from rapper 2 Chainz:

10:09 PM ET

Allow me to take a brief respite from the Presidential race, to bring you some good news out of Chicago! Anita Alvarez, Rahm Emanuel’s partner in crime, was defeated in her primary race. If you aren’t familiar, Anita Alvarez is the current Cook County State’s Attorney. Here’s some of her fine work:

[Alvarez is] under fire for waiting over a year to charge McDonald’s killer, and now The Daily Beast reports that Alvarez has failed to file charges against police officers in 68 fatal shootings, all told.

Reporter Justin Glawe writes that Alvarez often brushed off civilian shootings, with the media showing relatively little resistance or interest before before the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum. But now that police violence is an election issue and Alvarez’s seat is up for reelection (and under fierce competition from Kim Foxx and Donna More), voters want to know why she hasn’t indicted more cops.

10:01 PM ET

News outlets are calling Illinois for Trump, and with 37% of votes currently in, he’s up nearly 14% over Cruz. That’s more than double the lead pollsters had him at, but with 63% of votes still out that could obviously change.

Dems still close to call.

9:56 PM ET

I just got the saddest campaign suspension email from #TeamMarco. It’s a little depressing unless you keep in mind that he’s a total dick.

Screen Shot 2016-03-15 at 8.54.59 PM

9:50 PM ET

Sanders is addressing supporters after losing in Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina. Watch it here.

9:42 PM ET

Sorry for the radio silence for the past 20 minutes or so. I had to grab an Uber home from my dinner meeting, which turned out to be a really interesting ride! My Uber driver, as it would turn out, was a bit of a Trump supporter – and surprisingly this is my first time meeting one of them in the flesh. Living in the South, and given Trump’s popularity, you’d think this wouldn’t be such a rarity, but I guess I’ve gotten pretty good at building my #echochambers.

I have a general rule about not pissing off people who are driving me places, so I asked her some polite questions about why she liked Trump and tried to keep it cordial. She wanted me to know that she didn’t really like Trump that much, but would vote for him if it came down to it – but especially if it was Trump vs. Clinton. She said while at first, she supported Trump wholeheartedly, she’d recently come down more in favor of Cruz (or Rubio, who I didn’t have the heart to tell her dropped out).

I asked her what had caused this change of heart, hoping against hope that it would be something like “His rhetoric on Muslims is just a little too much for me” or “He has no experience and doesn’t know how to be a politician.” Nope! Instead, she responded, “I just didn’t like how he skipped out on that one debate… It just wasn’t very presidential.” Not exactly the inspiring answer I was hoping for.

And on that note, they just called North Carolina for Trump. At least I know how my Uber driver will be voting in November now.

9:18 PM ET

The #RubioHaiku hashtag is killin’ it on Twitter. Here are our fav contributions!

8:59 PM ET

Ohio has officially been called for Kasich, so I guess we have a few more weeks of pretending there’s hope for a non-Trump nomination. He gets all 66 delegates for Ohio, as they’re not awarded proportionally.

https://twitter.com/JillBidenVeep/status/709901159117541376

8:54 PM ET

In this shitshow of an election, it’s easy to think Rubio wasn’t that bad. But do remember, he was also very much a garbage human.

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/709898858730561536

8:50 PM ET

Seeing a few people on Twitter calling Ohio for Kasich, but nothing official quite yet.

8:47 PM ET

Pundits had pointed to a possible Sanders upset, and poll aggregation only had her up by 8%. But with only 4% of votes in, Ohio is being called for Clinton – where she’s currently up by more than 30%. Surprised to see this called so early, but there you have it!

8:38 PM ET

I’m seeing reports that Rubio did indeed drop out, following his rough loss in Florida. It was inevitable, but it’s still a bit of a surprise.

8:36 PM ET

Woops! I forgot to mention the Northern Mariana Islands. The Northern Mariana Islands love Donald Trump, I guess. He’ll get nine delegates. Hooray.

8:32 PM ET

North Carolina just got called for Hillary Clinton, which is no huge surprise. Polls had her up by ~24 points, and while only 5% of votes are currently in, those numbers are holding true. North Carolina also awards delegates proportionally, so we’ll update the final delegate count as it comes in.

8:19 PM ET

Florida is the first state to close tonight and call some winners.

Polling aggregates on Real Clear Politics had Trump besting Rubio in his home state by an 18-point spread, and the polls were right tonight. The Florida GOP Primary is a “winner takes all” strategy, so all 99 delegates are going to Trump. I can’t even snark about this anymore, I’m just sad.

Clinton led polling by nearly 30 points, which also held pretty close to true. Florida Dems divvy up delegates proportionally, meaning so we won’t know the exact split until all precincts are in.

So what’s next? Will Marco Rubio drop out after a miserable showing in his home state? Probably not. He’s probably still holding out hope in his tiny little heart for a contested convention, but maybe he’ll go rogue and run third party. Just a few days ago, in a rare moment of political honesty, Rubio defeatedly admitted he doesn’t know if he can support Trump. Good on ya, Rubio. Your crisis of conscience means nothing to the dumpster fire that is the Good Ol’ Party, but good on you anyway.

 

Courtney Caldwell

Courtney Caldwell is an intersectional feminist. Her talents include sweary rants, and clogging your social media with pictures of her dogs (and occasionally her begrudging cat). She's also a political nerd, whose far-left tendencies are a little out of place in the deep red Texas.

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One Comment

  1. I hate having the entire South be in the first half of the primary. More regional diversity, please. (I know it was done as Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s plan to make Clinton the nominee, and like most centrist Dems, she doesn’t care about November, and would really rather have her buddies in the GOP in charge of all three branches of government.)

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