News
Super Tuesday Eve (video)
< < Back to super-tuesday-eveWASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on campaign 2016 on the eve of Super Tuesday (all times local):
11:50 a.m.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump is the star of a Democratic ad in the Arizona Senate race.
“Donald Trump is dangerous for America,” says the commercial by Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who is challenging longtime GOP Sen. John McCain.
The ad highlights Trump’s more incendiary statements, his use of profanity and his questioning of McCain’s Vietnam War hero status. The commercial questions how McCain could say he would support Trump if he were the Republican presidential nominee.
The ad says, “there was a time where country mattered more than his political party, but 30 years in Washington has changed John McCain.”
Lorna Romero, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, is responding by saying the ad is “a cheap, pathetic display” and challenged Kirkpatrick to “explain her longstanding support for (President) Obama’s radical, liberal agenda.”
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11:05 a.m.
Marco Rubio is picking up Monday where he left off, dogging Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump for not disavowing Sunday a white supremacist and the Ku Klux Klan.
Rubio says Trump’s decision not to denounce the public support of former KKK leader David Duke disqualifies him from the nomination from “the party of Lincoln.”
Trump has said he did not hear or understand the question Sunday on CNN when he was asked about Duke and the KKK. He did disavow Duke’s comments earlier.
Rubio shot back Monday that no matter how bad the earpiece, “‘Ku Klux Klan’ comes through pretty clearly.”
The audience responds to Rubio’s attacks with chants of “Dump Trump, dump Trump!”
Rubio trails Trump in polls of Republican voters in Tennessee.
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10:50 a.m.
Hillary Clinton is casting herself as a civil alternative to the insults, bullying, and personal attacks that have consumed the Republican race.
“What we can’t let happen is the scapegoating, the flaming, the finger pointing that is going on the Republican side,” she told voters gathered in Springfield, Massachusetts on Monday morning. “It really undermines our fabric as a nation. So, I want to do everything I can in this campaign to set us on a different course.”
Clinton is in the midst of a campaign swing through Massachusetts and Virginia, on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, which includes contests in those states.
She made almost no mention of her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, underscoring how her political fortunes have shifted since her 22-point loss in New Hampshire earlier this month.
Instead, she’s focusing more on her potential general election opponents, asking Democratic primary voters for their help combating Republican economic policies. She says the two parties will have a “great debate” over the economy.
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7:30 a.m.
Donald Trump is stepping back from comments he made over the weekend when he claimed to know nothing about former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke, saying that he couldn’t hear the questions clearly.
Trump was asked Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether he rejected support for his presidential campaign from the former KKK Grand Dragon and other white supremacists after Duke.
“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. OK?” Trump told host Jake Tapper.
On Monday, however, he told NBC’s “Today” that he was given a “very bad earpiece” for the interview and that he “disavowed David Duke all weekend long on Facebook and on Twitter.”
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7:00 a.m.
Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has raised more than $36 million in February and is pushing his supporters to help him top $40 million for the month by the end of the day.
Sanders faced an end-of-the-month deadline in his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Entering the month, he had raised nearly $95 million since launching his campaign last April.
Sanders has raised most of his campaign money online in small increments and has made overhauling the campaign finance system a central part of the race.
He is campaigning Monday in Minnesota and Massachusetts heading into the Super Tuesday contests.
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