Republican front-runner Donald Trump rolled to primary wins in the big prize of Michigan and in Mississippi on Tuesday, brushing off a week of blistering attacks from the party’s establishment and expanding his lead in the White House nominating race.
Trump’s convincing win in Michigan restored his outsider campaign’s momentum and increased the pressure on the party’s anti-Trump forces to find a way to stop his march to the nomination ahead of several key contests next week.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders stunned front-runner Hillary Clinton in a narrow Michigan primary upset, giving his upstart campaign new momentum heading into bigger contests down the road. Clinton won the Mississippi primary.
Trump built his victories in Michigan, in the heart of the industrial Midwest, and Mississippi in the Deep South with broad appeal across many demographics. He won evangelical Christians, Republicans, independents, those who wanted an outsider and those who said they were angry about how the federal government is working, according to exit polls.
At a news conference afterward, Trump said he was drawing new voters to the Republican Party and the establishment figures who are resisting his campaign should save their money and focus on beating the Democrats in November.
“I hope Republicans will embrace it,” Trump said of his campaign. “We have something going that is so good, we should grab each other and unify the party.”
The results were a setback for rival John Kasich, governor of Ohio, who hoped to pull off a surprise win in neighbouring Michigan and for Ted Cruz, a US senator from Texas who hoped to do well in Mississippi with its large bloc of evangelical voters.
Marco Rubio, a US senator from Florida who has been the establishment favourite since other mainstream candidates dropped out of the race, lagged badly in both states and appeared unlikely to win delegates in either.
Trump said Rubio’s recent attacks on him had backfired.
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