THE ides of March—the 15th of the month, on which five big states voted at around the midpoint of the primary calendar —was bound to be a day of reckoning. In Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump faced perhaps their last serious impediments to securing, respectively, the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets. Yet they breezed through. Mrs Clinton won all five states and, absent calamity, will be the first female presidential candidate. Mr Trump won four, losing only in Ohio to its popular governor, John Kasich. Though the rabble-rousing tycoon still has work to do; he looks almost unstoppable. The reckoning for his party, and perhaps America, will be dreadful.
As a clue to the identity of America’s next president, Mrs Clinton’s achievement was more momentous. It was also more crushing and, unlike Mr Trump’s, beyond the candidate’s own expectations. Having lost to Bernie Sanders in Michigan, where the snowy-haired senator seemed to impress blue-collar workers with his hostility to free trade, Mrs Clinton’s campaign was braced for more defeats across the midwestern rustbelt: most...Continue reading
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