Remember the hug with Barack Obama that caused permanent damage to Chris Christie’s reputation among conservatives? Hillary Clinton could be about to endure her own #huggate.
I’ll leave this with you. Thanks for reading.
This may be the best photo from Mrs. Reagan's funeral. pic.twitter.com/kX1WZP9mwi
— David Chalian (@DavidChalian) March 14, 2016
Updated
Donald Trump dared protesters to show their face during a rally in Boca Raton, Florida, on Sunday night, reports David Smith. When one finally did, the Republican frontrunner ignored him and carried on with a disjointed speech.
The event in luxurious Sunset Cove passed relatively peacefully, a much-needed lowering of the temperature after the violence and chaos last Friday in Chicago, where he called a rally off.
Trump attempted to turn that debacle into a personal victory.
“We’ve been given a lot of credit,” he said. “And you know what, it was an amazing thing, and the other side actually said this didn’t work out too well. Because all over the world they’re talking about what took place, and they’re talking about how well we handled it, and they’re talking about the fact that nobody got hurt, nobody got injured, everything went smooth, it was a nice easy break-up.”
Later, training his fire on the media as the crowd whistled, Trump asked mockingly: “Do we have a protester anywhere? Do we have a disrupter? Because unless we have a disrupter – I don’t even call them protesters, I call them disrupters – unless we have a disrupter, the camera never goes off my face. They’re all live. They never go off my face. Is there a disrupter in the house?”
There was no response and he continued his rambling remarks. But before the end one protester of Asian appearance waved a homemade banner and was jostled and shoved before being escorted out by uniformed security guards. Trump took no notice of the skirmish and continued to talk.
All night the reality TV showman was in evidence. Triumphalist music blared as he flew by helicopter over the bay on what an announcer described as “Trump Force One”. Walking out on an amphitheatre stage, he was dwarfed by a gigantic stars and stripes. He told how he had proved wrong the pundits who dismissed him as a clown or self-promoter.
“I’m a better person than the people I’m running against,” he boasted. “And I’m a better person than Hillary.”
The crowd, many wearing T-shirts and shorts as they stood on the open-air lawn, cheered both remarks then chanted: “We want Trump! We want Trump!”
The businessman, who enjoys a healthy poll lead in delegate-rich Florida, which votes on Tuesday, described the millions of new voters supporting him as “the biggest political story in the world today”.
He also spoke of the strategy that has served him so well, calling rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio “Lyin’ Ted’ and “Kiddie Marco” in the hope the names will stick: “You have to brand people a certain way when they’re opponents. Like Jeb Bush; we called him ‘low energy’.”
Trump took swipes at China and Mexico and complained that America does not win any more. He delivered a rousing and bizarre finale: “We’re going to win, win, win. We’re going to win so much you’re going to get sick and tired of it. You’re going to say, ‘Mr President, we can’t take it any more! You’re winning too much. Please, we don’t want to win that much any more. Please Mr President, we can’t take it.’”
Summary
The Democratic forum in Columbus, Ohio – one of the states that votes on Tuesday – has finished. Here are the key points:
- Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both used strong language to attack Donald Trump and place responsibility firmly on the Republican frontrunner for the recent violence at his campaign rallies. Asked about Trump’s claim that Sanders supporters were fomenting the violence, the Vermont senator said: “I hesitate to say this because I don’t like to disparage public officials, but Donald Trump is a pathological liar.” Clinton compared Trump’s comments and behaviour to “political arson” and said he had been “incredibly bigoted”.
- Both candidates were asked which of them would stand the best chance of defeating Trump in the general election. Sanders said correctly that virtually every national poll showed him beating the New York businessman, and by bigger margins than Clinton would. Sanders also said that if he won the presidency the Democrats would win the Senate too. Clinton said she was the only candidate to have won more votes than Trump so far, and promised she had a lot of arguments ready to deploy against him. “I’m not going to spill the beans now.” Foreign leaders were already calling her asking if they could endorse her to help her stop Trump, but she said she had told them: “This is up to Americans, thank you very much, but I get what you mean.”
- The two Democratic hopefuls were also asked a number of questions about race and criminal justice. Sanders took a hard line on police killings – “Any police officer who breaks the law ... must be held accountable. Period” – and said that as president he would investigate every killing of an American held in police custody or while being apprehended. Clinton said it was absolutely unacceptable that so many African American men were going to jail and promised to replace the “school to prison pipeline” with a “cradle to college pipeline”.
- Clinton renewed her calls for comprehensive background checks, and the closure of the gun show and online loopholes, and said of the gun lobby: “I’m going to take them on. I don’t know how much we can get done but I am sick and tired of these killings.”
- Sanders attacked Clinton’s previous support for trade deals and said he would introduce “an entirely different” process in terms of trade. But he drew laughter when he explained his support for trade generally by saying: “Nobody is talking about building a wall around the United States.” He added: “Oh, I beg your pardon. There is one guy who is talking about it… Let me rephrase it. No rational person is talking about building a wall.”
- Confronted by a question about her support for the death penalty from Ricky Jackson, who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, many on death row, Clinton seemed somewhat conflicted as she defended her policy to retain it in “very limited” circumstances, such as for the terrorists behind 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.
- Sanders set out his healthcare plans, attacked the war on drugs, and explained his support for public schools.
- Clinton showed the depth of her knowledge of Obamacare, promised to protect the US steel industry and called China “the major rule-breaker in the international economy”. She said that in foreign affairs “force should always be a last resort, not a first choice”. And she was somewhat ambiguous on the subject of fracking, a big industry in Ohio.
And that’s it. I’ll sum it up shortly.
What does she wish she was better at as a politician?
She says she is much better when she has a job to do, rather than trying to get the job.
She doesn’t want to get hired to be a “constant candidate”, she says.
Clinton is asked about how to help poor communities combat gun violence.
“We are in a crisis when it comes to gun violence,” she says. “It is truly an epidemic.” She calls for “common sense gun safety reforms”.
She calls for comprehensive background checks, and the closure of the gun show and online loopholes.
She points out that Sanders voted for a law that gave immunity from lawsuits to gun manufacturers for the crimes committed with their guns, and Clinton voted against it.
She talks about the mothers of those who have been killed by guns, who she says she has got to know.
The obstacle to resolving this is the gun lobby, Clinton says. “Maybe I’ve just met too many families who have lost loved ones to gun violence in some of the big mass shootings.”
The Charleston killer should not have been able to get his gun, she says.
I’m going to take them on. I don’t know how much we can get done but I am sick and tired of these killings.
I’m no Trump speechwriter, but just off the top of my head: “Foreigners want Clinton to beat me, they should keep their nose out, the American people will decide, and they’ll decide TRUMP!”
I can imagine Trump trying to use those comments about foreign leaders trying to intervene to help Clinton beat him against her.
The man who said his family were worried about Donald Trump earlier asks Clinton the same question he asked Sanders: which Democrat stand the best chance of defeating Trump?
Clinton says she is the only candidate who has got more voters than Trump - 600,00 more, she says.
She says she is building a broad-based, inclusive campaign and that is the best way of beating him.
Republicans have been after her for 25 years and “there isn’t anything they haven’t already said about me”.
I am not new to the national arena, and I think whoever goes up against Donald Trump better be ready and I feel I am the best prepared and ready candidate.
There are going to be a lot of arguments to make against him - “I’m not going to spill the beans now.”
But she says foreign leaders are asking if they can endorse her to stop Trump. “This is up to Americans, thank you very much, but I get what you mean.”
She notes in passing that she was there in the situation room helping advise Obama to go after Osama bin Laden, which is a bit of a humblebrag ...
Tapper asks about fracking, a big industry in Ohio, and an anti-fracking activist takes up the theme.
As president, will she let local communities ban fracking if they want to? (Ohio doesn’t allow that.)
Clinton says she has to figure out what she can do at the federal level, rather than the state level.
She says there is growing evidence that tremors in Oklahoma are linked to fracking.
She says she will try to regulate it better, rather than ban it. No president could do that, she says, because there are “too many layers of law we’ve got to deal with”.
There is a lot of applause for what was to be honest a rather ambiguous answer.
Updated
Should Democrats stop taking money from private prisons?
Yes, the answer is yes, she says.
Clinton is asked about the criminal justice system. She says it is absolutely unacceptable that so many African American men will end up in jail during their lifetime.
An African American young man is more likely to be arrested, charged and incarcerated than a white man doing the same thing, she says.
We have got to be willing to stand up and question these inequities, she says.
We need to divert many more people out of the jail and prison system into jobs and skills programmes, Clinton says. And we need more mental health treatment.
And we need to end private prisons, she says, calling them a “shameful blot on our prison system”.
She wants to replace the “school to prison pipeline” with a “cradle to college pipeline”.
Clinton is asked about Obamacare, and goes through a series of intricate questions about the questioner’s particular case, sounding like a solicitous and knowledgable telephone helpline operator. She certainly knows how Obamacare works.
She asks the questioner to go on to the insurance exchange and try to drive the price of her care down.
Before the forum, Hillary Clinton appeared at a Democratic dinner in Columbus, and Lauren Gambino was there.
Hillary Clinton used her strongest language yet to condemn Donald Trump at a Democratic party dinner in Columbus on Sunday night, saying he is “not who we are”.
“Let’s just tell the truth about what’s going on here. Donald Trump is running a cynical campaign of hate and fear for one reason: to get votes,” she said. “He’s encouraging violence and chaos to get votes. He is pitting Americans against each other to get votes.”
Taking the stage after Bernie Sanders, Clinton impressed on the voters in the room that Trump would be defeated by votes – not rhetoric.
“We can criticize and protest Mr Trump all we want,” she said, “But none of that matters if we don’t also show up at the polls. If you want to shut him down, then let’s vote him down.”
Clinton was repeatedly interrupted by bursts of cheering and “Hillary!” chants. The Democratic frontrunner also took the opportunity to distinguish herself from Sanders on trade, an issue they have been arguing back and forth on since the Michigan primary.
Ricky Jackson, who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he did not commit and was exonerated, says he spent many of those years on death row and “came perilously close to my own execution”. How can she be pro-death penalty?
Clinton says the states have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials and she would “breathe a sigh of relief” if the states or the supreme court eliminated the death penalty.
But she says that “for very limited” circumstances, it should be retained for the federal justice system. She mentions the 9/11 attackers and the Oklahoma City bomber.
“What happened to you was a travesty and I just can’t even imagine what you went through,” she says.
Clinton is asked if the US will get involved in more conflicts under President Clinton.
She says she wants to use “smart power” and diplomacy, leading the rest of the world, not “going off on our own”.
.@HillaryClinton on military "action v inaction: "Obviously, force should always be a last resort, not a first choice."
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) March 14, 2016
Updated
A laid-off steelworker asks about the “illegal dumping of foreign steel”.
Clinton says she wants to summon up the political and legal arguments to take that on. The US government should stand up for steel, stand up for the companies and the workers, she says.
And she has proposed a trade prosecutor, she says.
“A steel industry is in America’s national security interest as well as in our economic interest,” she says.
She calls China “the major rule-breaker in the international economy”.
Martin asks her about unions historically keeping black people out of jobs. Clinton says no one should be kept out of jobs.
CNN’s Jake Tapper says Trump has claimed Clinton and Sanders supporters were violent (although I think he has only claimed that of Sanders supporters).
It is Donald Trump’s responsibility, she says, raising Trump’s comments about paying the legal bills for his violent supporter in North Carolina.
She calls this a “case of political arson” - he has lit a fire, she says.
Correction: Tapper was right and I was wrong. Trump has blamed both Sanders and Clinton:
It is Clinton and Sanders people who disrupted my rally in Chicago - and then they say I must talk to my people. Phony politicians!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016
Updated
Clinton is asked about her comments about Trump and the violence at his rallies.
All Americans should be concerned, she says. Trump is running a very cynical campaign pitting groups of Americans against each other and playing to people’s worst instincts.
He incites violence, talking about punching people, offering to pay legal bills, she says.
And he has been “incredibly bigoted” towards many groups. “We’re a nation built on immigrants,” she points out.
There is so much we are doing that we all have to reject, she says. “You don’t make America great by tearing down everything that made America great.”
Hillary Clinton's turn
The former secretary of state takes the stage.
How has this experience changed him?
Sanders says meeting so many people around the country has been important, including Native Americans.
He says he has seen so many young people who are optimistic about the future. “All of that has been extremely gratifying to me.”
And that’s it from Bernie ...
Updated
Who are Sanders’s friends, he is asked. Who would he take out to a sports game?
The people I work with are often my closest friends, he says, adding that he has some old friends of 30 or 40 years’ standing in Burlington, Vermont.
Who is his closest friend on the other side of the aisle? Sanders says he doesn’t want to say because he’d ruin that person’s career.
Republican senator Jim Inhofe is a “decent guy” and “he and I are friends” despite him being a climate change denier and a conservative.
Sanders is asked how he will work with Congress.
He says if he is elected it will have meant a significant increase in voter turnout, adding that he thinks he has a chance in Ohio. And in those circumstances the Democrats would regain the Senate and a significant number of seats in the House.
He says the premise of his campaign is the belief that most of the members of Congress believe themselves indebted to their campaign contributors rather than their voters.
Everyone will have to work together to tell Congress they need to represent the public, not the 1%, he says.
A questioner says that as a citizen he supporters him, but as an entrepreneur he is worried.
Sanders says that after you factor in the fact you won’t have to pay for health insurance for your workers under President Sanders, you will be much better off.
Publicly funded healthcare happens in every civilised country, Sanders says.
The questioner says it would certainly make things simpler.
A former heroin addict asks what he plans to do with “the failed drug policy that tends to want to incarcerate addicts instead of rehabilitate them”.
Sanders says there is a “massive crisis” in heroin and opiate addiction and the US needs to “fundamentally rethink the so-called war on drugs, which has been a failure”.
It should be viewed as a health issue, not a criminal issue, he says.
The next questioner says he is the son of immigrants and his family is scared about the rise of Donald Trump. Which Democratic candidate would best take on and defeat Trump?
“Good. Good question,” says Sanders.
The questioner asks for three points of an “anti-Trump gameplan”.
Sanders says he resents it when people say he could not win the general election. He says virtually every national poll shows him defeating Trump, and he does better than Clinton against Trump. (He’s right.)
Republicans win when the voter turnout is low, he warns.
And he has faith the American people won’t elect Trump, listing some of the people and groups he has insulted and bringing up Trump’s role in the “birther” movement that attempted to prove Barack Obama was not born in the US.
That is an insult to the African American community and to everyone who voted for Obama, he says to applause.
TV One’s Roland Martin says many black people support charter schools. Sanders repeats his backing for public schools, saying the mixing of people in such schools is one of the things that has made America great.
He says he wants to see “experimentation” in this field “but I do not want to see money leave the public schools”.
A charter school teacher asks Sanders about whether he supports those schools for low income areas.
He says he believes in public education and public charter schools. He does not believe in privately controlled charter schools. This gets a lot of applause.
And he suggests teachers should earn a better wage, saying he is sick of hearing about brilliant footballers and how much they make.
He then attacks the “dysfunctional” childcare system in the US. He says he would try to create a “first-class national childcare system”.
Sanders is asked about whether middle-income Americans would see a tax increase under President Sanders.
He says the wealthiest people and large corporations should pay their “fair share”.
And he points out that when he expands Medicare to all, healthcare costs will be vastly slashed.
The middle class will be protected, Sanders says.
More than half of Ohio’s exports go to Mexico and Canada, Sanders is told.
This is a global economy. Trade is a positive thing, Sanders says. “Nobody is talking about bulding a wall around the United States.”
There is laughter from the crowd at this.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” says Sanders. “There is one guy who is talking about it...”
Let me rephrase it. No rational person is talking about building a wall.
Updated
Charles Noble, who works with the organisation My Brother’s Keeper, which works to help young black men, asks about how he will encourage job growth in areas where minorities and the poor live. Sanders says we have to target economic help on the most depressed areas.
He says of Flint, Michigan: “Talk about a third world country. You would almost think it was a fourth world country.”
He says he has spent his life taking on the billionaire class and special interests, and will invest in low-income communities across America. It’s “a national disgrace ... Together we’re going to change it.”
Wayne Carlson, the dean of undergraduates at Ohio State University, asks Sanders how he will pay for his policy of “free college for all”.
Sanders denies that is what he is proposing. He says he is proposing free tuition at public colleges and universities and to lower the amount of student debt.
He says a degree today is as necessary as a high school diploma was 50 years ago.
He says he will pay for it - “70 billion bucks a year” - with a tax on Wall Street speculation. “It’s Wall Street’s time to help the middle class of this country”, after the country bailed out Wall Street, he says.
How will Sanders’s plan not damage historically black universities, he is asked. He says he will do everything he can to fully support them. “They are high on my agenda and they should not feel threatened by this legislation,” he says, not giving further details.
The next question is about low wages in the car industry and keeping jobs in the US.
Sanders says he opposed every “disastrous” trade agreement. Clinton “has supported” almost all of them, he says (her position has changed on trade deals recently).
He rails against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal with Asia, and says he will create “an entirely different” process in terms of trade.
If US companies want us to buy their products, they should manufacture them here, not in China, he says.
He calls the minimum wage “a starvation wage” and vows to raise it from $7.25 to $15.
Sanders is asked by Terina Allen, the sister of Sam DuBose, who was killed by a police officer in Cincinnati, is asked what he would do to create a zero tolerance policy for unjust police killings.
Sanders sends her his condolences and says such killings by police have got to end and soon.
Any police officer who breaks the law ... must be held accountable. Period.
If elected president, he would investigate every killing of an American held in police custody or while being apprehended - “an automatic Department of Justice investigation”.
And he wants to improve training so police understand that lethal force should be the last response, not the first response.
Police departments should be “demilitarised” and should reflect the diversity of their communities.
The American people are tired of seeing unarmed people get shot, he says.
Police reform and ending institutional racism will be at the top of his to-do list as president, he says.
Moving on to race and the economy, Sanders says he wants to combat unemployment among the black and Latino community.
Sanders is asked about his own supporter who rushed the stage at a Trump rally. He says millions of people support him and he can’t take responsibility for all of them.
Sanders is asked about whether someone might lose their life at a rally, and he points out that the accused in the North Carolina case has said he might kill the protester next time.
He points out that Trump has said he might pay the legal fees of the man who punched a protester in North Carolina.
That means Trump is inciting violence, Sanders says. That is an outrage.
He says he hopes Trump “tones it down big time” and tells his supporters “violence is not acceptable in the American political process”.
Sanders is asked about Trump’s claims that Sanders supporters are the ones fomenting the violence at the Republican frontrunner’s rallies.
Sanders replies calmly:
I hesitate to say this because I don’t like to disparage public officials, but Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
Updated
Democratic forum begins with Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders is up first ...
Updated
In between an evening rally and a CNN town hall, Bernie Sanders briefly addressed Ohio Democrats at a party dinner in Columbus on Sunday evening.
Offering a truncated but no less thunderous version of his stump speech, the Vermont senator excoriated Wall Street and the corrupt campaign finance system. To loud cheers, Sanders reiterated his call for a political revolution.
“What this campaign is about is creating a political revolution. It is the understanding that no president, not Bernie Sanders or anyone else, can do it alone,” he said.
With that, he ended his speech quickly departed – off to the CNN forum due to begin any minute.
The crowd of Democrats rose to their feet and clapped. A group of supporters chanted “Bernie”. As the chants died down, another corner of the room started anew: “I’m with Her.”
Hillary Clinton is expected to take the stage at any minute.
Sanders has galloped through his speech at the Democratic dinner preceding the forum:
.@BernieSanders just took the stage at the Democratic dinner and said he's going to be "very very brief" bc CNN forum starts at 8!
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) March 13, 2016
Sanders gets big cheers for promising to overturn Citizens United & end voter suppression laws
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) March 13, 2016
What this campaign is about is creating a political revolution. It is the understanding that no president ...can do it alone. @BernieSanders
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) March 13, 2016
Bernie managed to keep it brief! Loud cheers and chants of "Bernie" as @BernieSanders makes a quick exit pic.twitter.com/Izy5TXfhnS
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) March 13, 2016
Clinton should be up next there – presumably while Sanders rushes to the CNN event
Before the forum, Clinton and Sanders are due to speak at a Democratic dinner in Columbus, Ohio. Lauren Gambino is there and earlier ran into Jerry Springer.
Jerry Springer at the Dem dinner in Ohio. Q: What do you think of Trump? A: I try not to. pic.twitter.com/ns0yE4iMwr
— Lauren Gambino (@LGamGam) March 13, 2016
In the comments, dave_damage asks:
There’s only one answer to that:
Bernie Sanders is a G. Can't stop watching this. 😂 pic.twitter.com/FT7Q0hip2x
— Stephen Robinson (@xstex) March 7, 2016
David Smith reports from Donald Trump’s rally Boca Raton, Florida:
A few protesters waved placards at Trump supporters driving to the waterside amphitheatre in Boca Raton where Trump is due to speak imminently. At least one demonstrator has been removed from the crowd amid chants of “Kick them out!” and “USA! USA!”
Wearing T-shirts and shorts in the evening sunshine, supporters have been instructed – as is standard at Trump rallies – not to touch any protesters but rather to alert security and shout: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Speakers so far have included Laura Wilkerson, a Texan who said her son Josh had been murdered by an illegal immigrant and provided a graphic police report of his injuries, describing it as her family’s own 9/11. “If we don’t have a wall, he’ll be right back to do it again,” she told the crowd, saying she wants to give Trump a chance.
Michael Barnett, chairman of the Republican party in Palm Beach County, insisted that he is “absolutely not” worried about violence at the event, where some people are sitting on grass and a long queue formed for hot dogs. “From what I’ve heard from the Trump campaign, they’re on guard and have taken all necessary precautions,” he said.
Asked if Trump’s rhetoric has fuelled the violence, Barnett made an alarming comparison: “I don’t think Donald Trump is responsible for the violence any more than a lady is responsible for being attacked because of how she looks or what she wears.”
The 39-year-old, who as a black conservative described himself as being in a small minority, went on: “I know Trump is known for speaking his mind and that upsets people but it’s no cause for violence. It’s going to be a very exciting election. People have short memories and forget the riots in 1968 at the Democratic convention. We’ll get through this too and we’ll have a peaceful election.”
Others were unconcerned. Debbie Finley, a recruiter and Trump volunteer who knows him personally, said: “I think he will make the country better and help the people back to work. How can you have such beautiful children and not be a great guy?”
Protester disrupts rally. Crowd chants: "Kick them out! Kick them out!" and "USA! USA!" pic.twitter.com/s1yomQKcjk
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 13, 2016
Dawn Marcus-Greenstein, 56, an accountant, said: “The country has been run into the ground. Everybody’s thinking what he’s saying, the country’s so desperate. The media are doing to him what they did to Howard Hughes because he wasn’t a politician and couldn’t be bought.”
She added: “We need a revolution in this country and he’s the closest thing. He’s not even going to take a salary if he’s president – that’s what I heard, anyway. He’s a businessman and we need a good businessperson. It would be a sad day if he doesn’t get in. If Hillary does, I’ll leave the country. She thinks people are stupid.”
Her friend, Teresa Kinan, 56, a caretaker who moved to the US from Portugal 20 years ago, chimed in: “She really is evil. If people don’t like Donald Trump, they should go home.”
Jeff Janci, 57, a high school teacher wearing a baseball cap with the legend, “Trump. Make America great again”, said: “I think the violence is all ordered by the Republican high order or the Democrats. Trump has said some things he shouldn’t have but we all do that. I think he was just trying to get noticed at the beginning; down the road he’ll tone it down a lot.”
Peter Sage, 66, a retired financial adviser, Clinton supporter and “political tourist”, had come to witness and try to understand. Sage predicted the violent clashes at Trump events would only play into his hands, allowing him to scapegoat the culprits.
“Half a dozen people did something stupid and he gets to have an opponent: not Romney or Cruz or the Pope but a protester. He gets to dump on somebody unappealing. Trump now gets to be the hero of the first amendment. Instead of being a loudmouth buffoon bragging about his penis size, he’s become a spokesperson for free speech and victim.”
Good evening and welcome to tonight’s live blog of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders town hall forum in Columbus, Ohio. Lauren Gambino is on the ground in a rainy Columbus and I’ll be your host live from New York.
Some readers who may not previously have felt they had much in common with Donald Trump may have found themselves inadvertently nodding along with the Republican frontrunner when he said earlier this week that there had been too many debates this primary season and there was no need for more.
But stick with us. Sanders and Clinton seem to respond fairly well to the town hall setting - in which each is interviewed separately, in this case by CNN’s Jake Tapper and TV One’s Roland Martin - and as Tuesday’s key primaries in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri approach, both Democratic candidates will be conscious of the extremely high stakes at play.
The leftwing Vermont senator defied the polls to stun the former secretary of state with a win in Michigan on Tuesday that seemed to indicate he had more strength with rust belt voters and northern African Americans than many had assumed. He’ll be hoping to repeat the trick in Ohio and Illinois, states with similar profiles, and tonight sent out an email to supporters trumpeting an NBC/WSJ/Marist poll that showed him just six points behind Clinton in Illinois. In fact, a second poll for CBS News/YouGov puts him two points ahead, a significant reverse given Clinton had double-digit leads there in the four previous polls in the state.
In Ohio, where tonight’s Democratic town hall will take place, Real Clear Politics gives Clinton an average 17.8 point lead, while in Florida, the biggest and most significant of Tuesday’s primary states, RCP gives the former first lady a 30.9 point lead, and she is up in Missouri and North Carolina too.
(On the Republican side, Ohio governor John Kasich might win his own state, but Trump looks set to sweep the board elsewhere.)
As well as the familiar Democratic debate topics of trade, immigration reform, healthcare and student debt, the candidates are sure to be asked about the ugly turn Trump’s campaign events have taken this week, with violence in St Louis, Chicago, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, and an accusation that Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski manhandled a reporter in Jupiter, Florida.
Sanders issued a statement today after Trump said he would look into paying the legal expenses for the man accused of punching a protester in the Fayetteville incident: “Donald Trump should not be condoning violence by paying the legal fees of a supporter who viciously attacked a protester at one of his rallies. He should tone down his rhetoric and condemn the violence of some of his supporters.”
David Smith will be watching the Republican frontrunner tonight at an event in Boca Raton, Florida.
At Donald Trump rally in Boca Raton, Florida, a far cry from icy Iowa and New Hampshire. pic.twitter.com/hVEGXKARIP
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 13, 2016
The Democratic candidates may also be asked about Barack Obama’s lengthy interview in the Atlantic, during which he set out his foreign policy doctrine in great detail. His caution, particularly in the Middle East, is at times contrasted in the piece with an instinct from Clinton towards taking action.
Clinton may also be quizzed about her praise for the late Nancy Reagan’s record on Aids, for which the former secretary of state has apologised. “I just don’t know what she was talking about,” Sanders said earlier today. Many gay rights activists view the Reagans as a couple who deliberately turned a blind eye to the Aids crisis, with devastating consequences.
Here’s today’s earlier live blog, if you want to catch up on all the day’s events so far, including a heckler in Florida accusing Marco Rubio of stealing his girlfriend.
The Democratic town hall begins at 8pm ET on CNN and TV One. Hope you can join us.
Is it possible, or plausable Mrs Clinton would have Mr Sanders as her running mate for the presidency.