Voters in Chandler waited long after the polls closed to cast their ballot in Arizonaβs presidential primary election.
Under a fresh cloud of overseas violence, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton padded their delegate troves on Tuesday with victories in Arizona and attacked each other as the 2016 presidential contest turned into a clash of would-be commanders in chief.
In Arizona, Trump took 47 percent to Ted Cruzβs 23 percent and John Kasichβs 10 percent among Republicans. Among Democrats, Clinton won with 60 percent to Bernie Sandersβ 37 percent, with 82 percent of the votes tallied by late Tuesday night. Trump and Clinton won in Pima County as well as statewide.
Long lines and high interest marked primary elections across Arizona, Utah and Idaho that were largely an afterthought for much of the day as the world grappled with a new wave of bloody attacks in Europe. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for blasts in Brussels that left dozens dead and many more wounded.
In Utah, Sanders was the winner while Cruz was leading on the Republican side.
Democrats were also caucusing in Idaho.
βThis is about not only selecting a president, but also selecting a commander-in-chief,β Clinton said in Seattle as she condemned Trump by name and denounced his embrace of torture and hardline rhetoric aimed at Muslims. βThe last thing we need is leaders who incite more fear.β
Trump, in turn, branded Clinton as βIncompetent Hillaryβ in an interview with Fox News as he discussed her tenure as secretary of state. βIncompetent Hillary doesnβt know what sheβs talking about,β the billionaire businessman said. βShe doesnβt have a clue.β
The back and forth between the front-runners came amid a frenzy of activity from voters eager to make their voices heard in the 2016 election.
In Utah, caucus-goers were dispatched by poll workers to local stores with orders buy reams of paper and photocopy fresh ballots amid huge turnout. The state Democratic Partyβs website crashed due to high traffic.
In Arizona, voters waited two hours or more in some places to cast primary ballots, while police were called to help control traffic. Maricopa County, with four times as many voters, had fewer than half as many polling places open as Pima County.
The results from Arizona didnβt bode well for Democrat Sanders and Republicans Cruz and Kasich. They are running out of time to slow Trump and Clintonβs march toward acquiring all the delegates needed to claim their partiesβ nominations.
Trumpβs Arizona victory gives him all of the stateβs 58 delegates, while Arizona awards its delegates proportionally on the Democratic side.
As voters flooded to the polls, the presidential candidates lashed out at each otherβs foreign-policy prescriptions, showcasing sharp contrasts in confronting the threat of Islamic extremism.
Clinton β and Trumpβs Republican rivals β questioned the GOP front-runnerβs temperament and readiness to serve as commander in chief, and condemned his calls to diminish U.S. involvement with NATO.
Addressing cheering supporters in Seattle, Clinton said the attacks in Brussels were a pointed reminder of βhow high the stakes areβ in 2016.
βWe donβt build walls or turn our back on our allies,β she said. βWe canβt throw out everything we know about what works and what doesnβt and start torturing people.β
Cruz seized on Trumpβs foreign-policy inexperience while declaring that the U.S. is at war with the Islamic State group.
βHe doesnβt have the minimal knowledge one would expect from a staffer at the State Department, much less from the commander in chief,β he told reporters.
The debate between the two took a detour late Tuesday night as they engaged in an unusual Twitter exchange about their wives.
The billionaire warned Cruz he would βspill the beans on your wifeβ after an anti-Trump outside group ran an ad in Utah featuring Trumpβs wife, Melania, in a photo shoot that ran in GQ magazine more than a decade ago.
Cruz shot back with a tweet of his own, saying in part, βDonald, if you try to attack Heidi, youβre more of a coward than I thought.β
Trumpβs brash tone has turned off some Republican voters in Utah, where preference polls suggest Cruz has a chance to claim more than 50 percent of the caucus vote β and with it, all 40 of Utahβs delegates. Trump could earn some delegates should Cruz fail to exceed 50 percent, in which case the delegates would be awarded based on each candidateβs vote total.
Trump supporter Easton Brady, 19, of Provo, Utah, cheered the billionaireβs brash style, even as he acknowledged Trump doesnβt play as well in Utah as other parts of the country.
βI think Trump says a lot of dumb things, but heβs human,β Brady said. βI donβt care.β
Arizonaβs win gives Trump a little less than half the delegates allocated so far. Thatβs still short of the majority needed to clinch the nomination before the partyβs national convention this summer.
However, Trump has a path to the nomination if he continues to win states that award all or most of their delegates to the winner. Overall, Trump has accumulated 739 delegates, Cruz has 425 and Kasich 143.
On the Democratic side, Clintonβs delegate advantage is even greater than Trumpβs.
The former secretary of state is coming off last weekβs five-state sweep of Sanders, who remains popular among his partyβs most liberal voters but needs to improve his performance if he expects to stay relevant.
The Vermont senator, now trailing Clinton by more than 300 pledged delegates, had targeted Tuesdayβs races as the start of a comeback tour.
He, too, addressed the worldβs security threat: βWe will stand as a nation with our allies and our friends and people all over this world,β he told supporters in San Diego.
