We know this at this point. But as we listen to the election commentary tonight it is telling how potential wins for various Republicans (besides Trump) are simply presented as wins that could make it possible for them to stay in the race or be ‘plausible’, whatever that means. It is admittedly hard to know how one can be both ‘plausible’ and have no conceivable path to the nomination. No question Trump wins. Just how he wins.
I’m watching the coverage on CNN right now as they look over the exit polls. The big takeaway is that they’re tracking the difference between “dissatisfied voters” vs “angry voters.” Next up: “already stockpiling weapons” voters.
7:47 PM: “Extraordinary epic collapse” – Anderson Cooper on Rubio campaign.
It looks like a blowout for Donald Trump tonight, though probably without winning Ohio. But it looks like we have very close races Ohio, Missouri and Illinois on the Democratic side. The latest exit polls show extremely close results in each state – small lead for Clinton in Ohio and even smaller ones for Sanders in Illinois and Missouri. Those are mid-evening exit polls, keep in mind. But very close. Meanwhile, Clinton scores a smashing win in Florida.
I didn’t think Rubio would get out tonight. Soon, yes. But not tonight. And yet there it is. It was a contradictory speech in many ways. On the one hand he was clearly standing against Donald Trump’s politics of division; on the other arguing that the “political establishment” betrayed the Tea Party waves of 2010 and 2014 – which is in many ways the sort victimization politics and raising of false, hopeless expectations that laid the groundwork for Donald Trump.
Certainly one of his more human moments, certainly a difficult one for him. You can see the emotional anguish in his speech, affect and how he’s carrying himself.
The mid-evening exit polls showed Ohio very, very close. But it wasn’t born out in the results. The networks have now declared Hillary Clinton the winner in Ohio. That comes after a solid win in North Carolina and a blowout win in Florida. There are still races to be called in Missouri and Illinois. And those seem close. But at a minimum a very solid night for Clinton – both in delegate terms and in symbolic terms as well.
Citing an unnamed source, Reuters reported late Tuesday that President Obama had narrowed his short list of potential Supreme Court nominees to two men and could announce his nominee as early as Wednesday.
The final two candidates for the seat left open by the death of Antonin Scalia are Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Merrick Garland, both of whom sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Reuters reported, citing a “source familiar with the selection process.”
It’s really a bit much that at least so far none of the networks have carried any of Bernie Sanders’ speech. Tonight was a massive win for Clinton. But Sanders is still in the race. Kasich, meanwhile, who has something like a courtesy win in his home state of Ohio but is not even really in the race, had his whole speech covered.
Tonight is likely the turning point where, if we open our eyes to see it, we can see the general election match up between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
I did not think Sanders would still be fighting Clinton to close to a draw in states like Illinois. But Clinton will win either 4 of 5 or 5 of 5 states tonight, all big states, three of them major swing states. More importantly, Clinton’s edge in pledged delegates is now close to overwhelming. The Democrats don’t have winner take all primaries. So it’s not possible catch up with wins in a string of big states. Even if Sanders won every remaining state by a narrow margin, he’d probably still lose.
Obama will announce his Supreme Court nominee in the Rose Garden at 11 a.m. ET