Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump secured the last of the Republican primary states on Tuesday in California and a historic count of over 13 million primary election votes.
Trump closed out the primary election season with wins in South Dakota, New Mexico, New Jersey, Montana, and California. While Sen. Bernie Sanders remains actively campaigning for the Democratic nomination against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump became the GOP’s presumptive nominee shortly after winning Indiana’s May 3 primary election.
The American businessman surpassed 2012 nominee Mitt Romney’s and 2008 nominee John McCain’s primary election vote totals by late in April according to Politico calculations. Previous record holder George W. Bush received just 10.8 million votes in 2000, a number far surpassed by Trump’s over 13 million votes with the five June 7 primaries.
Trump’s total is 13,266,277 according to the RealClearPolitics vote count as of Wednesday morning. That count didn’t appear to include the most recent totals for California which they listed at 1,146,548. As of Wednesday morning, the California Secretary of State’s website reported a slightly higher 1,173,893 votes for Trump with 99.7 percent of precincts reporting.
Many supporters of constitutional conservative Sen. Ted Cruz in late primary election states like California thought this might be the year they got to make a difference in the primary, casting a vote that would help decide the nominee. Cruz however, dropped out of the race following defeat in Indiana prompting moderate Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich to pull out as well.
In the end, California Republicans holding out by committing to their respective candidate voted 9.2 percent for Cruz and 11.3 percent for Kasich. This leaves a significant number of votes on the table for Trump to potentially win over. Many former Trump critics have fallen in line behind their party’s nominee as the election season has rolled forward.
Democratic Party presidential candidate Clinton heavily emphasized the angle that she will be the first female nominee of a major party in America’s history in her Tuesday night victory speech given from Brooklyn, New York. Sanders vowed to fight on for the Democratic presidential nomination in his late night speech from Los Angeles, California where he proclaimed, “The struggle continues!” Sanders did pull out a win in Montana on Tuesday, preventing a Clinton June 7 primary shutout.
Clinton logged a significant 25.6 percent drop in California primary votes compared to her 2008 performance. In her 2008 battle against then- Sen. Barack Obama, she received 2,608,184 California Democratic primary votes compared to a 2016 total of 1,940,580 against Sen. Sanders with 100 percent of precincts reporting.
Sanders supporters told Breitbart News that they weren’t giving up on their candidate during a Tuesday election night party. The crowd yelled, “The media is corrupt!” and criticized the Monday evening pre-California primary election day Associated Press report that claimed Clinton had secured enough delegates to win their party’s nomination.
Several Sanders supporters from Sen. Harry Reid’s precinct made their stand in the Nevada caucuses and refused to relent to Clinton — even when friends and loved ones beckoned them and they were told they would receive no delegates for Sanders. Reid is backing Clinton.
Republicans and Democrats will make their presidential nominations official at their respective party’s national conventions. The Republican National Convention will be held in Cleveland, Ohio from July 18-21. The Democratic National Convention will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from July 25-28.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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