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2nd LD Writethru: Trump continues momentum with 2 big victories, Sanders nets surprising win in Michigan

Xinhua, March 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

New York billionaire developer Donald Trump continued widened his lead on Tuesday with two big victories in the Mississippi and Michigan Republican primaries, delivering a strong blow to mainstream Republicans who scrambled to derail his campaign.

Trump was declared the winner in Michigan by U.S. major TV networks immediately as polls closed at 9:00 p.m. ET (0200 GMT).

Meanwhile, Trump won about 50 percent support in Mississippi with 25 percent of votes counted, and his commanding victory there reinforced his strength among deeply conservative and evangelical electorates, who historically would vote for his major rival Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

After his limp showing in February contests, Super Tuesday and Super Saturday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, once regarded by mainstream Republicans as an alternative to Trump after Jeb Bush bowed out, was facing an uphill battle to justify his stay in the race after another round of fiascos on Tuesday.

As of 11:00 p.m. ET (0400 GMT), Rubio was at a distant nine percent in Michigan and five percent in Mississippi. Both Michigan and Mississippi have a 15 percent threshold for presidential candidates to be awarded any delegates both statewide and at the congressional level.

Tuesday's Republican contests, which also included a Republican primary in Idaho and Republican caucuses in Hawaii, came at a time when mainstream Republicans worked overtime to derail Trump's campaign.

According to a new study released on Tuesday, a coalition of mainstream Republicans committed to halting Trump's momentum blanketed the country with 7,000 anti-Trump TV advertisements over the past seven days, taking up 76 percent of all political TV attack ads which were broadcasted over the same period.

Meanwhile, Cruz was declared winner of the Idaho Republican primary, according to local media.

On the Democratic side, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won a landslide victory in the Mississippi Democratic primary earlier Tuesday night.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, however, scored a surprising victory on Tuesday in Michigan, a delegate-rich state where early polls had showed consistently that he trailed Clinton by double digits. Sanders was declared winner with a 2-point lead over Clinton.

Sanders' victory in Michigan was crucial as the senator was in urgent need of building momentum as the Democratic contests were now moving away from the South, where Clinton's popularity among black voters during Super Tuesday on March 1 helped create an almost insurmountable delegate lead.

During the nomination process, Democrats allot their delegates proportionally, and just like the Super Tuesday contests, Clinton's big lead in Mississippi on Tuesday would net her more delegates than a narrow win in Michigan would net Sanders. Endi