Politics & Government

Hillary Clinton Wins Texas Primary, Says America Shouldn't Build Walls

Clinton gets a commanding 67.6 percent of the vote to Sanders' 30.6 percent in a state rich with delegates.

Tony Cantu's profile picture
Tony Cantu, Patch StaffVerified Patch Staff Badge
|

AUSTIN, TX -- Hillary Clinton has defeated political rival Bernie Sanders in the Texas Super Tuesday primary.

Clinton secured a commanding 66.2 percent of the vote compared to Sanders’ 32.1 percent.

Even before the contest began, the Democratic race in Texas has been decidedly more anti-climactic than its GOP version. Early on, Clinton was expected to win in the state, where the GOP field has commanded much of the electorate’s attention.

Find out what's happening in Austinfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

That didn’t deter from the enthusiasm of Democratic voters, many of whom heard Clinton speak in Florida after their candidate was declared the victor of seven states overall to Sanders’s four primary wins.

Texas was seen as the real prize among them, given its large number of delegates -- 222 toward the 4,051 needed to secure the party nomination.

Find out what's happening in Austinfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

“What a super Tuesday!” she said to cheers from the crowd. “All across our country today, Democrats voted to break down barriers so we can all rise together.”

All told, Clinton won seven states while Sanders won four. In addition to Texas, Clinton also won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Virginia. Sanders gets his home state of Vermont along with Colorado, Minnesota and Oklahoma.

In terms of delegates secured, the margin between the two candidates has now widened exponentially: Clinton now has 577 while Sanders has 386. Clinton gained 486 delegates after Super Tuesday, while Sanders added 321. A total of 2,383 are needed to win the party nomination.

In her use of metaphors, she alluded to Republican front-runner Donald Trump -- who’s vowed to compel Mexico to build a wall to separate it from the U.S. -- without mentioning his name.

“Instead of buiding walls, we’re going to break down barriers and build ladders of opportunity and empowerment,” she said.

For his part, Sanders chose to remain in his home state of Vermont in waiting out the primary results. After winning his home state -- one of just two primaries for the senator -- Sanders thanked his supporters while expressing how happy he was to be back home.

“In Vermont, billionaires to do not buy town meetings,” he said, in another inferred jab at Trump. “And in America, we are gong to end a corrupt campaign finance system,” he added to cheers from the crowd.

On the heels of a huge victory in South Carolina on Saturday, Clinton was widely expected to take Texas. Campaign staffers at Clinton’s Texas headquarters in Austin are still in the afterglow of a decisive win over rival Sanders in South Carolina, where their candidate secured a commanding victory.

That victory ended up yielding a bellwether of her performance in Texas after the Super Tuesday polling places closed. The impressive previous victory in another southern state foretold her victory in Texas, the overwhelming support of the key African American voting bloc yielding another barometer of her performance in the Lone Star State.

CNN on Tuesday evening was already projecting Clinton to be the winner in Georgia, one of the 12 states participating in Super Tuesday. This would mark the fifth victory for Clinton, who’s already won three of the first four Democratic contests.

Despite the odds, Sanders didn’t take the state for granted. He was here in Austin last weekend where he was hailed as a hero to enthusiastic throngs of mainly young people at the Circuit of the Americas race track in downtown Austin.

But it was an uphill battle for Sanders. A Texas Tribune/University of Texas poll showed Clinton well ahead of her competitor days before the primary.

Largely because of the Republican race and its diverse cast of characters, the early voting period leading up to today’s Super Tuesday primary exceeded election officials’ expectations in terms of voter turnout. But the Democratic race also has galvanized voters, Sanders’ populist message resonant primarily with young people and Clinton’s historic run exciting others.

That brisk pace continued unabated with the arrival of Super Tuesday. Travis County officials expect up to 130,000 voters at 190 polling locations -- a vote that would outperform the 2008 primary turnout of some 111,000 voters, notes the Austin American-Statesman.

As of noon, the county clerk said as many as 32,000 people had already voted. Shortly after 5 p.m., the total had grown to 37,073 and counting, said Williamson County elections administrator Christopher Davis during a telephone interview.

That pace is certain to dwarf the entire turnout for the 2012 Texas presidential primary, which drew 48,000 voters.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.


The New Texas Patch

Sign up for free news alerts and follow us on Facebook.

Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

More from Austin