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 The victories by Trump, who is running as an anti-establishment
outsider, and Clinton, a preeminent political insider, solidified
their positions as the front-runners to win their parties'
respective nominations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.
The night's most prominent casualty, Bush suffered a distant fourth
place finish in the Republican contest and announced he had
suspended his campaign, ending his dream of becoming a third Bush
president after his father and brother.
"The people of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken,
and I really respect their decision," an emotional Bush said in
Columbia. He finished far out of the running in each of the first
three states.
By winning both South Carolina and New Hampshire and holding leads
in 13 states that hold Republican contests on March 1, Trump was
arguably on track to win the nomination, an outcome that seemed
astounding to contemplate when he entered the race last summer.
 "It's going to be very difficult for him to be derailed at this
point," said Hogan Gidley, who was a senior adviser to former
Republican candidate Mike Huckabee.
The 69-year-old real estate billionaire and reality TV star was
declared the winner in South Carolina about an hour after polls
closed, and launched into a feisty victory speech.
"Let's put this thing away," Trump told cheering supporters in
Spartanburg.
He denounced TV pundits for saying there could be enough anti-Trump
votes to beat him when the race thins further.
"These geniuses," he said. "They don't understand that as people
drop out, I'm going to get a lot of those votes also. You don’t just
add them together."
Trump easily defeated Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator
Ted Cruz, who were in a close fight for second place and the right
to declare themselves the anti-Trump alternative.
With 99 percent of South Carolina precincts reporting, Trump had
32.5 percent, followed by Rubio with 22.5 percent and Cruz with 22.3
percent.
Cruz's inability to distinguish himself from Rubio in the state was
a blow to his campaign, which had invested heavily there to rally
support among South Carolina's large population of evangelical
voters.
Trump's victory won him at least 44 of the state's 50 delegates,
bringing his delegate count to 61, compared to 11 for Cruz and 10
for Rubio, according to a tally by Real Clear Politics. Republicans
need 1,237 delegates to win the party nomination.
SANDERS SETBACK
It was Trump's second victory in a row, an outcome that frightens
establishment Republicans but thrills the "throw-the-bums-out"
conservative base of the party that has long been fed up with
Washington.
The bellicose New York billionaire had created some last-minute
drama in South Carolina after Pope Francis said on Thursday his
views on U.S. immigration were "not Christian."
Trump, who has also advocated a ban on Muslim immigrants to counter
domestic terror threats, stirred fresh controversy on Friday when he
told a crowd about a U.S. general who was said to have dipped
bullets in pigs' blood to kill Muslim prisoners a century ago.
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Former Secretary of State Clinton's victory in the Nevada Democratic
caucuses, meanwhile, could help calm worries among the Democratic
establishment about the strength of her campaign.
Her result denied Sanders the breakthrough win he had sought in a
state with a heavy minority population, but his ability to close a
one-time double-digit polling lead for Clinton suggests the
Democratic nominating race will be long and hard fought.
With 90 percent of precincts reporting, the former first lady was
leading with 52.6 percent of the vote to Sanders' 47.4 percent.
Clinton's victory gave her fresh momentum as she heads into the next
contest in South Carolina on Feb. 27, where polls show her with a
double-digit lead largely as a result of heavy support from black
voters.
"Some may have doubted us, but we never doubted each other," she
told cheering supporters at a victory rally in Las Vegas. "This is
your campaign."
Sanders vowed to fight on and set his sights on the 11 states that
vote on "Super Tuesday," March 1. He predicted that when Democrats
gather for their nominating convention in Philadelphia in July, "We
are going to see the results of one of the great political upsets in
the history of the United States."
"The wind is at our backs," the Vermont senator said. "We have the
momentum."
After routing Clinton in New Hampshire and finishing a strong second
in Iowa, states with nearly all-white populations, Sanders had hoped
to prove in Nevada that he could win over black and Hispanic voters
and compete nationally as the race moves to states with more diverse
populations.
But entrance polling in Nevada showed he badly lost among black
voters, by 76 percent to 22 percent, a bad omen for South Carolina
and other southern states with big black populations. He did win
among Hispanics by 53 percent to 45 percent.
Clinton's campaign has argued she would assert control of the
Democratic race once it moved to more diverse states with black and
Hispanic populations who have traditionally backed Clinton and have
been slow to warm to Sanders.
(Reporting by Luciana Lopez and Steve Holland; Writing by John
Whitesides, Steve Holland and Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew
Hay and Mary Milliken)
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