Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in Wednesday’s West Virginia primary, while Donald Trump looks to be closing in on the 1,237 delegates he needs to officially claim the Republican nomiantion.
The loss was a personal blow to Clintion, who won the state overwhelmingly in 2008. She defeated Barack Obama by 41 points during the primary.
Donald Trump was quickly declared the winner on the Republican side as soon as polls closed in West Virginia and Nebraska, which had a Republican election Tuesday.
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Race for delegates: Where do both races stand?
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Despite being the presumptive nominee, more than 19 percent of the voters in West Virginia still voted for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Both of them suspended their campaigns after losing the Indiana primary last week.
Many West Virginians voting in the state’s presidential primary say they see the economy as the top issue facing the country, and they think trade is costing America jobs.
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More than half of West Virginia Republicans and nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters casting ballots on Tuesday say the economy is the top issue facing the country.
That’s according to early findings from exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research.
In the West Virginia Democratic primary, 7 in 10 say they’re very worried about the economy and another 2 in 10 say they’re somewhat worried.
Majorities of voters in both primaries say trade with other countries mostly takes jobs from American workers.
West Virginia is holding a Democratic primary election on Tuesday, but a significant portion of voters choosing between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders say they don't identify as Democrats.
About 4 in 10 voters in the state’s Democratic primary say they consider themselves to be an independent or Republican. That’s according to early findings from exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research.
Among those voting in West Virginia's Democratic primary, about a third say they would support presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump over either Clinton or Sanders in November's general election.
An additional 2 in 10 say they wouldn't vote for Trump, Clinton or Sanders this fall.
Republicans are voting in Nebraska and West Virginia.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who dropped out of the campaign last week after losing to Donald Trump in Indiana, said he might restart his campaign if he wins tonight.
“We launched this campaign intending to win. The reason we suspended our campaign was that with the Indiana loss, I felt there was no path to victory,” he said Tuesday on conservative host Glenn Beck’s radio program.
“If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.”
Latest from the campaign trail by the Associated Press
9 p.m.
Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in Nebraska, a second victory in Tuesday’s elections for the presumptive GOP nominee.
Among his backers in the state was Don Fricke, a 76-year-old dentist from Lincoln. He says he voted for Trump because the billionaire businessman is a political outsider.
Fricke says he wants a candidate who will work to lower taxes and defend the country by strengthening the military, and he sees those qualities in Trump.
He adds that he thinks Trump has "a very good chance" against likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election. Fricke says of Clinton, "Hillary's got too much baggage."
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8:02 p.m.
Donald Trump’s victory in West Virginia means he will get at least three delegates.
The 31 other delegates in West Virginia are elected directly by voters. Their names appear on the ballot, along with the presidential candidate they support.
Republican voters are also going to the polls in Nebraska on Tuesday. Nebraska will award all 36 of its delegates to the statewide winner.
With 1,071 delegates, Trump has 87 percent of the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination for president. With no major rivals left in the race, he is already the party’s presumptive nominee.
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7:48 p.m.
Donald Trump’s campaign says a computer problem resulted in a prominent white nationalist being included on a list of his potential California delegates.
The campaign says the name has been withdrawn and a corrected list resubmitted to state officials.
Trump’s California director, Tim Clark, says in a statement Tuesday that a “database error” was at fault.
The campaign says potential delegate William Johnson had been rejected and removed from the campaign’s list in February.
Johnson’s appearance on the list was first reported by Mother Jones magazine.
Johnson is a Trump supporter who tells The Associated Press that he received an email from Clark earlier Tuesday informing him that his name had been “erroneously listed” as a delegate.
In California, Republican candidates pick potential delegates to the GOP’s summer convention. They are selected based on the outcome of voting in the state’s June 7 primary.
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7:30 p.m.
Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential primary in West Virginia, adding to his claim on the GOP’s nomination.
The billionaire businessman became the party’s presumptive nominee after his victory last week in Indiana, which led his last remaining rivals to drop out of the race.
Anne Ashley is a 66-year-old substitute teacher’s aide from Scott Depot, West Virginia. She and her husband Jim say they were supporters of one of those former rivals, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
On Tuesday, they voted for Trump.
Anne Ashley says she thinks Trump is “becoming more aware of the gravity of becoming president and becoming more composed.”
Jim Ashley says now that Trump is the presumptive nominee, it’s time for him to unify the Republican Party and to bring other candidates that ran against him into the fold. He says Trump “thinks ‘I can do it on my own,’ but he’s wrong.”
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6:41 p.m.
Hillary Clinton predicts Republicans will "throw everything including the kitchen sink at me" in the general election, but the Democratic front-runner has a message for them.
She says, “They’ve done it for 25 years and I’m still standing.”
Clinton says at a campaign event in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday that she looks forward to debating presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Clinton is urging Kentucky voters to “have a big vote” next week in the state’s presidential primary to help her campaign “get ready to go all the way to November.”
Clinton was rallying supporters in Louisville shortly before the polls were closing in West Virginia’s primary. She made no mention of the West Virginia race, where she faces Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.
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5:50 p.m.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to appear later this week at a fundraiser for Republicans on Long Island.
Trump is headlining the Nassau County Republican Committee’s annual “Patriots Reception” on Wednesday. Tickets to the event are $200 each.
The fundraiser was scheduled before Trump took control of the nomination process with a win last week in Indiana.
It comes amid negotiations between the celebrity businessman and the Republican National Committee about fundraising for the general election.
To this point, Trump has self-funded much of his campaign. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he’s leaning against accepting public financing of his campaign.
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5:05 p.m.
GOP runner-up Ted Cruz has returned to the Senate, promising to roll up his sleeves and take on “the issues that were the heart of our presidential campaign.”
What the Texas Republican is yet unwilling to promise is an endorsement of presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
Asked about endorsing Trump, Cruz said: “What I am interested in supporting are free-market principles and the constitutional liberties of America.”
Cruz addressed a media throng outside his Senate office Tuesday afternoon before being greeted by an ovation from his staff.
He is widely unpopular among his Senate colleagues. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked whether he’s going to be working more closely with Cruz than he has in the past. McConnell replied, I’m happy to have him back and you ought to ask him that.”