Fox News jumped in first this evening, calling New Jersey boldly for Hillary and echoing AP’s perhaps too previous analysis from Monday that she now has the Democratic nomination sewn up. (I never saw Hillary’s lead over Bernie at anything less than 54%, and it grew as the evening wore on. She’s cruising at over 63% now with 95% of the votes counted.)
Green Party candidate Jill Stein has posted what she considers proof that the Hillary campaign colluded with AP to plan the clinched-nomination announcement for the eve of the 7 June primary sweepstakes. (H/t: Gateway Pundit) Stein has a video from user “Stardust”/@Cold_Stare wandering around on social media showing an announcement graphic, used by AP, that appears to have been created on 4 June — even before the Puerto Rico primary — and to be hosted on a server associated with Hillary’s campaign material.
https://twitter.com/Cold_Stare/status/740039202541211648
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
OK.
It’s hard to get very excited about this, although the whiff of such a possibility was clear last night. I notice from the comments posted by Bernie supporters that Stein is apparently considered something of an all-around annoyance to the republic. There seems to be a sort of mini-wave in the Berner ranks for the #NeverStein position. Emphasis on the “mini.”
Trump is winning New Jersey with just under 81% of the vote. Voters have cast more than 83,000 ballots for Kasich and Cruz.
The numbers are trickling in for California, where the polls closed an hour ago. I voted early this morning and found a healthy but not unusual turnout. Hillary has a big 62-37% lead on Bernie at the moment, but with 94% of the vote left to count, that will change.
Trump is at just under 78% with 6% of the vote tallied. Kasich is over 11%, Cruz near 8% of the vote.
Clinton won New Mexico, although by a narrower — if still healthy — margin than in New Jersey, picking off Sanders about 52% to 47%.
Montana’s still early in the count, and Clinton and Sanders are neck and neck there, each around 47-48%.
As expected, Cruz is outpolling Kasich in New Mexico and Montana. Trump has both in the bag with over 70% of the vote, of course.
Bernie won the North Dakota caucus vote handily. (The GOP vote was held in March.)
But Hillary eked out a narrow win in the South Dakota primary, beating Bernie by a little over 1,200 votes out of some 51,000. Trump took 67% of the GOP votes in his win there; Cruz, again, beat out Kasich for second place.
*UPDATE*: At 10 PM Pacific (1 AM Eastern), with 17% of the California vote counted, Hillary’s lead has shrunk only a little, to just under 62% over Bernie’s 37%. (There are several goofy fringe candidates running as Democrats in our jungle primary. They’re soaking up about 1% of the vote.)
Trump’s holding at 77.7% of the GOP vote.
GOP fail — whether EPIC or not, your call
In the Senate race for the seat being vacated by Barbara Boxer, crassly opportunistic Democrat Kamala Harris, the California attorney general, is easily in first place in an undifferentiated field of 34 candidates from all parties. She’s got about 40% of the vote. In second place is U.S. Representative Loretta Sanchez, also a Democrat.
The Republican candidates, of whom there are far too many, are individually well back of Harris and Sanchez. It’s likely that the two Democrats will face off in November. They’re both hard leftists whose liberal-fascist views are antithetical to American constitutionalism. Either one would be happy to jail you for expressing skepticism about the “climate change” catechism.
The top GOP vote-getters are Duf Sundheim, whom no one has ever heard of (but whom [score]Darrell Issa[/score] endorsed and recorded a robo-call for), Phil Wyman, whom no one has ever heard of, and Tom Del Beccaro, whom a few people have heard of, but not many. It doesn’t matter, because with the vote split among them — and half a dozen other GOP candidates afflicted with spelling incompetence and arcane political obsessions (according to their candidate statements in the California voter guide) — there was never any way one of them would surge past Loretta Sanchez to make the general election a two-party contest.
The brainless majority of California voters (sorry to be so negative; I’m just too disgusted tonight) endowed themselves with this jungle primary system via a ballot measure passed in 2010. Democratic voters are clearly determined to destroy the economy, the infrastructure, and the spirit of the people. In 2012 and 2014, the jungle primary system resulted in one-party run-offs in several U.S. congressional districts. 2016 marks the first year in which the general election for a U.S. senator will almost certainly be a run-off between two Democrats.
A friend noted on Facebook earlier today that voting in California is now like voting in Venezuela.
