Democratic
contestant Bernie Sanders scored a surprise win over prime
candidate Hillary Clinton in Michigan, the biggest contest on the
third day of multi-state nominating contests in the US presidential competition.
Billionaire
businessman Donald Trump made further improvements in the race
to be the Republican presidential candidate in November’s election with
convincing primary ballot conquests in Michigan and Mississippi.
Mrs
Clinton won Mississippi, her 12th state victory, comfortably by a near-70 point
margin thanks to her strong, long-standing support among African-Americans and
older, white voters in the American south.
But
the story of the night was Mr Sanders’s stunning upset in Michigan where there
were 130 nominee-picking delegates, the eighth largest state number, up for
grabs.
Mr
Sanders’s narrow win over the Democratic favorite will inject a fresh burst of
energy into the socialist’s upstart campaign and slow Mrs Clinton’s momentum
after her arc of southern states.
The
Vermont senator beat the former US secretary of state by 50 per cent to 48 per
cent, confounding polls heading into the Michigan ballot that showed Mrs
Clinton leading him by a 20- to 25-point margin.
Speaking
at an unprepared news conference in Miami before all the votes were counted in
Michigan, Mr Sanders said: “What tonight means is that the Bernie Sanders
campaign, the people’s revolution that we are talking about is strong in every
part of the country.
He
described Tuesday as a “fantastic night” and said that the contests in his
“strongest areas” are yet to happen, including on the west coast.
The result in Michigan
caught even the Sanders camp by surprise, as the victory was called for the
74-year-old senator long after his followers had left the large hall at his
election-night party in Florida.
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