JB
Hillary Clinton’s local supporters certainly had reason to go thumbs-up about her Super Tuesday wins in seven states (including Tennessee). Celebrating at the Rec Room on Broad Tuesday night were (l to r) County Commissioner Van Turner, local Democratic chair Randa Spears, Terri Rice, and West Tennessee lead Clinton coordinator Dave Cambron.
We have to remember that it was the Dodo bird in Alice in Wonderland who proclaimed that “all have won, and all must have prizes.” But that adverse pedigree notwithstanding, the phrase holds as a description of what happened in the 13-state collection of presidential caucuses and primaries known as “Super Tuesday.”
It is easy enough to say, and several TV and online pundits did say, mostly early on, that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were the big winners on the Republican and Democratic sides, respectively. To be sure, they won the most states, and they amassed the most delegates to add on to what were already healthy leads on the competition.
But six of Clinton’s wins were in Southern states (including Tennessee) where she owned a long-standing firewall of African-American support accumulated in almost two generations of cultivation of and familiarity with that base Democratic constituency on the part of herself and her husband, former Arkansas Governor and U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Her wins in those states were almost a given (though it is also meaningful that rival Democrat, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, failed to dent the black vote, essential to any Democratic national candidate, to any appreciable degree).
Clinton’s other victory was in Massachusetts, and it was by a hair, as in Iowa — an outcome that could, a la Iowa, ultimately be considered something of a draw.
As for Sanders, his wins in home state Vermont, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Minnesota showed enough diversity to go with the $43 million he raised in February to justify a long campaign forward — most of it on terrain where Clinton’s built-in demographic edge won’t be so disproportionate.
The Republican results were also somewhat misleadingly one-sided.
Trump had a good night, winning in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Virginia, Tennessee, and (by a hair) Vermont, but his conqueror in Iowa, Senator Ted Cruz, captured home-state Texas and neighboring Oklahoma and even Alaska, getting something of a second wind as a result, and even Florida Senator Marco Rubio booby-prize win in Minnesota (his first) kept his would-be metamorphosis as the GOP establishment’s consensus candidate breathing in the cocoon, if but barely.
Even Ohio Governor John Kasich went virtually neck-and-neck with Trump in Vermont, yet another indication that things are fluid and a race is still on.
So in that sense none have really won yet, and none have the ultimate prize firmly in hand. The rivals of Trump and Clinton would certainly be willing to trade places with those two, however.
State-by-State, GOP State-by-State, Democratic
GOP Delegates Won to Date, Nationally (1237 needed for nomination; 1777 remaining to be voted on)
Democratic Delegates Won to Date, Natiionally (2383 delegates needed; 3286 left to be voted on;; Total includes super-delegates committed but not won in primaries or caucuses)
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY RESULTS IN SHELBY COUNTY
Donald Trump 20,715 29.93%
Ted Cruz 19,727 28.51%
Marco Rubio 18,248 26.37%
John Kasich 5,187 7.5%
Ben Carson 4,092 5.91%
Others 1,231 1.78%
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY RESULTS IN SHELBY COUNTY
Hillary Clinton 66,465 80.15%
Bernie Sanders 15,985 19.28%
Others 477 0.58%
