Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Inching Closer To Party Nominations
WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) -- The front-runners are even farther out front after presidential primary contests Tuesday delivered Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton big wins and a hefty cache of delegates, bringing them closer to their party nominations.
Trump won Republican races in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina; Clinton took Democratic contests in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio. The largest prize of the night was Florida for Trump, who collected all 99 GOP delegates in that winner-take-all election and chased home-state Sen. Marco Rubio from the race.
The once-overflowing pack of GOP primary contenders is now down to three. John Kasich, another endangered rival, stayed alive by winning Ohio, where he's governor, but he has no plausible path to the nomination in what's left of the primary season. Only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz does, and that's a distinct longshot. The prime suspense among Republicans now is whether the brutal fight will go all the way to an extraordinary contested convention in the summer.
On her side, Clinton built on her already significant delegate lead, even more lopsided when the party insiders known as superdelegates are added to the equation.
Both races in Missouri remained unsettled early Wednesday.
Florida was Rubio's last chance to turn the race around, and his loss closed the book on a campaign that had held much promise but repeatedly underperformed. In withdrawing from the race, Rubio said the forces of disaffection that have propelled Trump are a "tsunami" and "we should have seen this coming."