Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton win Tennessee
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton swept to victory in Tennessee on Tuesday.
Trump won Tennessee’s Republican primary, while Clinton easily defeated rival Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.
The win for Trump in Tennessee comes despite frantic last-minute efforts from the state’s GOP establishment to try to stop his rise by unifying behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., each endorsed Rubio over the past week and campaigned alongside him Monday in Knoxville.
Donald Trump wins Tennessee Republican primary
Rubio was trailing in third place in the Republican race, behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich trailed the pack. In Tennessee, 58 delegates were at stake Tuesday, the third most among Tuesday’s Republican contests.
Trump, speaking before supporters at Palm Beach, Fla., went right after Clinton, arguing she’s been in positions of power for years but hasn’t fixed the country’s woes.
“She wants to make America ‘whole again,' ” Trump said. “And I’m thinking, what is that all about? ‘Make America great again’ is going to be much better than ‘Make America whole again.’ ”
Meanwhile, Clinton and Sanders, a Vermont senator, were competing for their share of Tennessee’s 76 delegates, the sixth most among Democratic primaries held Tuesday.
Clinton also saw significant victories in places such as Virginia and Texas, key states that would help catapult her toward the Democratic nomination.
"Now this campaign moves forward to the Crescent City, to the Motor City and beyond," Clinton said at a rally in Miami. "We're going to work for every vote."
Hillary Clinton wins Tennessee Democratic primary
The two Democrats have had vastly different approaches in Tennessee, with the former U.S. secretary of state launching an aggressive TV and radio blitz in recent weeks. She has visited the state twice since announcing her candidacy, including making campaign stops in Memphis and Nashville on Sunday. Former President Bill Clinton also campaigned for his wife in Memphis last month.
Meanwhile, the 74-year-old Sanders, who calls himself a Democratic socialist, bucked the trend of last-minute visits by presidential candidates to the Volunteer State. Instead, he opted to focus his time campaigning in states such as Minnesota and Oklahoma. He won Oklahoma and Vermont. Sanders' approach in Tennessee did not include any appearances and he declined to run television ads.
Even before Tennessee's polls closed, Sanders sought to shift attention away from Clinton's big night and toward the 35 states that still need to vote.
"Let me assure you, we are going to take our fight for economic justice, for social justice, for environmental sanity, for a world of peace to every one of those states," he said while speaking at an event in Vermont. Sanders assured the audience he would win hundreds of delegates on Tuesday.
Back in the GOP race, the polarizing Trump, who entered Super Tuesday on a three-state win streak, has campaigned on a populist message fueled by anger over the direction President Barack Obama has taken the nation. He’s sought to take on “political correctness” at every turn and has deployed a nationalist tone, promising to build a wall between the border of the United States and Mexico and institute a ban on Muslims from entering the country.
After not aggressively challenging Trump for much of the campaign, Rubio and Cruz waged spirited attacks on Trump over the past week in recognition of his inside track to the nomination. Cruz has called into question Trump’s conservative credentials, while Rubio has repeatedly referred to the party’s front-runner as a “con man.”
Tennessee experienced strong voter turnout on Tuesday. In some places, voters waited two hours to cast ballots.
With a Starbucks coffee in hand, Nashville resident Floyd DePalma, 49, was first in line to vote downtown at the Nashville Public Library precinct.
DePalma, who runs a software company downtown and said he was voting for Cruz, arrived around 6:50 a.m. and was surprised when one of his employees, 30-year-old Scott Carothers, walked up behind him.
"We talked about coming to vote yesterday. I didn't expect to be first and second in line,” DePalma said. “My employees all come in at 9 (a.m.). I just wanted to get voting over with and start the day.”
By afternoon, as spitting rain fell across much of the state, a slow but steady stream of voters poured into the parking lot of the First Baptist Church in Nashville.
A poll worker at the voting station inside said more voters had already come to the location than was expected and more voters continued to park at the church and walk inside.
Among those who spoke to The Tennessean, many suspected the state would see an impressive Super Tuesday turnout, if for no other reason than this year’s primary has offered voters a striking contrast in personalities and viewpoints, some of which many have found either offensive or convincing enough for them to deem a primary vote necessary.
“I guess this is the first time in my voting life when a primary has seemed so significant,” said Caroline Huddleston, a conservative voter from Hermitage who said she and her like-minded friends have been befuddled by this year’s field of candidates. “I think most of my friends are conflicted. I think a lot of my conservative friends usually know who we want to vote for, but this year we just know we don’t want Donald Trump.”
Clad in a black leather biker jacket, Danny Womack, a voter with a firm handshake, felt just as passionate about this year’s primaries, but his emotions came from the opposite end of the spectrum.
Womack said he was persuaded months ago by what has become the core tenets of Trump’s campaign.
“I have tried your typical politician, and it doesn’t work,” he said. “With Trump, you have to take him as he is, and he doesn’t really need anybody’s money. He’s proven that.”
Natalie Neysa Alund and Jordan Buie contributed to this report.
