By Britt Nelson

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won five out of five Democratic presidential primary elections Tuesday in: Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri, leaving Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders far behind in total delegate counts. Sanders said he is staying in the race and will not drop out.

On the Republican side, New York billionaire Donald Trump won four out of five primaries – Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri — pushing him further toward the Republican nomination for presidential candidate.

As of Wednesday morning, both Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz won 41 percent of the votes in Missouri. But Trump’s win over Cruz is separated by less than 2,000 votes out of nearly a million votes cast. As a result, the Missouri primary remains in contention and a recount may be required. Missouri’s delegates have not been assigned to a Democratic or a Republican candidate.

Clinton, meanwhile, won Missouri also with a slim margin of 50 percent to Sanders’ 49 percent.

Cruz won no states on Tuesday; however, he has yet to drop out of the race, saying he is the only candidate that can beat Clinton in the general election on November 8.

Trump won Florida’s winner-take-all primary and the 99 delegates at stake there, leaving candidate Florida Senator Marco Rubio with no other choice but to drop out of the presidential race having won no states on Tuesday.

Republican Gov. John Kasich won his home state of Ohio, and he vows also to stay in the race all the way to the Republican National Convention in July.

Establishment Republicans keep repeating that Trump will not be the party’s nominee. Some are saying that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan will be given the nomination if Trump does not have the required number of delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot during the convention.

During TV interviews on Wednesday, Trump predicts he will have the required number of delegates at 1,237 to receive the Republican nomination. So far Trump has 640 delegates, more than half of what is needed to win the nomination.

Rubio spent millions of dollars on TV attack ads that had little or no effect on Trump winning Florida handily 46 percent to Rubio’s 27 percent. Cruz managed to score only 17 percent in the Florida primary.

Between March 22 and June 14, 28 more Democratic primary and caucus elections are yet to be held across America. For Republicans, 21 more primary and caucus elections are scheduled.

Large delegate-rich states such as California, New York and Pennsylvania have yet to vote.

Republican Party unity is hard to find now with Trump leading in the delegate count. With Rubio out Cruz or Kasich may be next to quit the race. However, both say they will remain in the race.

With Tuesday’s added delegate count, Cruz has about 200 delegates less than Trump. Kasich has only won Ohio.

Establishment Republicans are now counting on Kasich and Cruz to win upcoming primaries and caucuses taking away from Trump’s overall total so Trump will not have the required number of delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot during the Republican convention.

But even if Kasich wins every primary or caucus election left to go, he will not have the required delegate count to win, according to Real Clear Politics. Cruz also is facing a tough mathematical equation in winning the necessary number of delegates needed to win the nomination.

The numbers game will continue as more primaries and caucuses are held for both Republicans and Democrats.

Trump is intensely disliked by most establishment Republicans. Voters in record numbers are turning out to vote for Trump in every contest to date, which frankly is scaring the heck out of the GOP stalwarts.

Clinton appears to be the Democrat with the most delegates and she — barring unforeseen events — will most likely be their nominee. Sanders said repeatedly he is staying in the race, perhaps because Clinton remains under investigation by the FBI concerning her use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State during President Obama’s first term.

A recommendation for an indictment made to the U.S. Department of Justice by the FBI would end Clinton’s campaign, thus leaving Democrats to pick Sanders or someone else such as Vice President Joe Biden.

This dark cloud over Clinton’s campaign apparently does not matter to her supporters, who may be in a state of mass denial concerning the FBI investigation. Clinton says over and over she is not concerned about the FBI probe and that she had done nothing illegal concerning her private email.

With three months to go until primary and caucus elections are over, there could be many twists, turns and surprises to come.

Trump said on Wednesday morning that violence may break out inside the convention hall and outside on the streets of Cleveland if he is the delegate leader but ends up being denied the nomination by the establishment Republicans.

“I think you’d have riots,” Trump said in a New York Post news report on Wednesday. “I’m representing … many, many millions of people, in many cases first-time voters. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen. The really big story is how many people are voting in these primaries. If you just disenfranchise these people, I think you would have problems like you’ve never seen before.”

About the author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.
Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.