DETROIT – Republican front-runner Donald Trump has rolled
to primary wins in the big prize of Michigan and in Mississippi on Tuesday,
brushing off a week of blistering attacks from the party’s establishment and
expanding his lead in the White House nominating race.

Trump’s convincing win in Michigan restored his outsider campaign’s momentum and
increased the pressure on the party’s anti-Trump forces
to find a way to stop his march to the nomination ahead of several key contests
next week.

In the
Democratic race, Bernie Sanders stunned front-runner Hillary Clinton in a
narrow Michigan primary upset, giving his upstart campaign new energy.

Clinton
won in Mississippi, but the Sanders win is likely to ensure a prolonged
nominating fight.

Trump built his victories in Michigan, in the heart of the industrial Midwest, and
Mississippi in the Deep South with broad appeal across many demographics. He
won evangelical Christians, Republicans, independents, those who wanted an
outsider and those who said they were angry about how the federal government is
working, according to exit polls.

At a news conference afterward,
the 69-year-old said he was drawing new voters to the Republican Party and the
establishment figures who are resisting his campaign should save their money
and focus on beating the Democrats in November.

“I hope Republicans will
embrace it,” Trump said
of his campaign. “We have something going that is so good, we should grab
each other and unify the party.”

The
results were a setback for rival John Kasich, governor of Ohio, who hoped to
pull off a surprise win in neighbouring Michigan, and Marco Rubio, a US senator
from Florida who has become the establishment favourite but lagged badly in
both Michigan and Mississippi and appeared unlikely to win delegates in either.

The
Michigan victory sets Trump up
for a potentially decisive day of voting a week from Tuesday. On March 15,
Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina – like Michigan, states
rich in the delegates who will select their party’s nominee at July’s
Republican National Convention – cast ballots.

On the
Democratic side, Sanders told reporters in Florida that the results in Michigan
had been a repudiation of the opinion polls and the pundits who had written off
his chances in the state.

Polls
had shown Clinton with a double-digit lead going into the primary.

The US
senator from Vermont said it showed his political revolution was “strong
in every part of the country. Frankly, we believe our strongest areas are yet
to come.”

– Reuters