While Aggies and students across the nation took the week off for spring break, it was a very busy week for politics and the 2016 presidential candidates.
Last Tuesday was highly anticipated for both parties, but especially so for the GOP, mostly due to two of the five states that voted that day: Florida and Ohio. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had been banking on picking up the state’s 99 delegates, and had promised he could win in his home state, but fell short to Donald Trump. Trump finished first with 45 percent of the vote while Rubio only picked up 27 percent. Later that evening, Rubio announced the suspension of his campaign for presidency.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich had also been depending on a win in his home state to lend his campaign some viability, having not won in any states so far. Ohio, like Florida, is a winner-takes-all state, meaning whoever wins the majority of the votes takes home all of the state’s 66 delegates. The people of Ohio came out for Kasich, and the governor walked away with 46.8 percent of the vote, while Trump came in second with 35.6 percent of the vote.
While Kasich did manage to pick up a state, it probably won’t mean much to his campaign at all. He’s still firmly in third place with only 143 delegates to Ted Cruz’s 423 and Trump’s 678 and will need an astronomical winning streak to have any sort of real play in this election.
Trump also picked up victories in the remaining states, winning in Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri in addition to his decisive Florida win.
March 15 was a happy day for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who swept the five voting states, although Illinois and Missouri were close wins. Clinton now leads Sanders with 1,147 delegates total to his 830. Arizona, Idaho and Utah are the next three states to vote in Democratic polls on March 22, while only Arizona and Utah will host Republican primaries.
Off the campaign trail, this past week was big in regards to the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama announced his pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year. American federal judge Merrick Garland was chosen, although the decision is surrounded in controversy due to the timing in Obama’s term. Because Obama’s term will end in 10 months to be replaced by a new president — a president the GOP believes will be Republican — the Republicans have vowed to oppose any candidate Obama puts forward. Garland is generally well liked by both Republicans and Democrats, but the Republicans fear they will lose control of the Supreme Court by allowing Obama to make the decision. Obama’s actions within the Supreme Court will continue to develop in the coming weeks.
As the election chugs along, the odds are looking good for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to be the Republican and Democratic nominees, respectively.
