It is becoming increasingly clear that the United States is dealing with an election year the likes of which none have faced in decades. Last Thursday, a staunch Trump supporter assaulted a protestor at a campaign rally in North Carolina. Officers were already escorting the young protestor, named Rakeem Jones, off the premises, when John McGraw, 78, approached him and hit him in the face. When questioned about the altercation, McGraw responded, "The next time we see him, we might have to kill [Jones]." Last Friday, the Trump campaign was forced to cancel its campaign rally in Chicago after swarms of protestors arrived with overwhelming force. Physical skirmishes broke out between Trump supporters and protestors, often requiring the intervention of the Chicago police force. The controversial nature of Trump's presidential bid has provoked political tensions of a remarkable scale, and other candidates, both republican and democrat, have been quick to denounce the tacit violence underlying Trump's campaign.
After this whirlwind of controversies, the most recent primary election results have still added momentum to the Trump campaign, further propelled Clinton's, and shut down Rubio's bid for the presidency. Kasich, meanwhile, has renewed hope for his own campaign with a surprisingly encouraging victory of his own.
In the democratic primaries, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton won a substantial number of delegates in four out of five states, and came to a near-tie with her competitor, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. In Florida, Clinton won 64.5% of the vote, leaving Sanders with 33.3%. In North Carolina, she took 54.6% while Sanders received 40.8%, and in the Ohio primaries, 56.5% went to Clinton and the remaining 42.7% to Sanders. In Illinois, Clinton won by a smaller margin, with 50.5% to Sanders's 48.7%, while in Missouri there was no clear victor - Clinton had 49.6% of the vote and Sanders had 49.4%.
Illinois and Ohio ultimately came out in favor of Hillary Clinton, much to the disappointment of Sanders. These results come as a severe blow to his campaign, which had been counting on support from the industrial midwest. Clinton now leads the democratic presidential race with a total of 1,132 pledged delegates while Sanders doggedly trails behind with his own 818.
On the side of the republicans, senator Marco Rubio suffered a humiliating defeat in his own state of Florida, largely at the hands of Donald Trump. Trump took home 45.8% of the vote, leaving Rubio with 27.0%, senator of Texas Ted Cruz with 17.1%, and Ohio governor John Kasich with 6.8%. In Illinois, Trump came in first place again with 38.8%, Cruz with 30.3%, Kasich with 19.7%, and Rubio with 8.7%. Missouri voters gave Trump 40.8% of their votes, Cruz 40.6%, Kasich with 10.1%, and Rubio 6.1%. Yet another Trump victory was to be had in North Carolina, at 40.2%; Cruz came away second with 36.8%, Kasich with 12.7%, and Rubio was again in last place with 7.7%. In Ohio, however, there was a significant turnaround for Kasich, who won 46.8% of the vote, while Trump received 35.6%, Cruz with 13.1%, and Rubio with 2.9%.
Rubio's loss in his home state was a death sentence for his campaign, and he has now dropped out of the running for the presidency. Kasich's solid victory in Ohio may potentially be a sign of a reinvigorated campaign effort, but the mathematics stand against him: he would need more than 100% of the remaining delegates to move on to the general election. From a more practical perspective, his victory has denied the Trump campaign a substantial amount of delegates; had Trump won Ohio, he may have been able to brush Cruz aside and proceed on a clear trajectory to claiming the party nomination. Among the three republican party candidates remaining, Trump continues to lead with 646 delegates, with Cruz and Kasich following with 397 and 142, respectively.