Super Tuesday - Trump and Clinton Come Out Big Winners

Trump and Clinton emerge victorious out of Super Tuesday. Ted Cruz does well in opposition to Rubio, whose victory in just one state sparks disappointment.

Of course, the easiest way to win Super Tuesday is to win Super Tuesday. And Clinton definitely beat Bernie Sanders. While she didn't get a clean sweep — Sanders naturally won his home state of Vermont, as well as Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Colorado — she won Virginia and Georgia by landslide margins, with each called immediately after the polls closed at 7 pm. Then Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas. Then Arkansas. Then Massachusetts.

But at the end of the night, Clinton had won 7 out of 11 states, including Sanders's neighboring state of Massachusetts. Even with the Sanders campaign performing about as well as could be expected, it wasn't enough to keep him realistically in contention. It wasn't shocking, especially after South Carolina, that Clinton easily won southern states where black voters dominate southern primaries. But even if she didn't beat expectations, she underlined an inconvenient fact for Sanders: you just can't win a Democratic primary without black support.

And Clinton did better than just winning. She won by huge, landslide margins. The fact that Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia were all called so fast was indicative of just how thoroughly she demolished Sanders.

The other candidate to win Super Tuesday in the most literal of senses was Donald Trump. Many of the same states that immediately called for Clinton — Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee — did so for Trump as well, and he won Massachusetts immediately too.

He didn't sweep all 11 states, an outcome that appeared at least possible based on polling. Ted Cruz won his home state of Texas, and pulled out a surprise victory in Oklahoma. Marco Rubio won Minnesota. And crucially, the night ended with Marco Rubio — the candidate that the Republican establishment has been desperately touting as The One, who everyone's waiting for to fight Trump and to win and to accept treasure and to accept love — winning only one state out of eleven. Fifteen states have held Republican primaries or caucuses so far, and exactly one of them has gone for Marco Rubio.