Sanders wins Michigan primary as Trump bounces back – as it happened

Within the hour of polling closures, Trump is recognized as the Mississippi winner. Trump won neighboring Alabama 43-21 over Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio chalked up 19 points in the state.

The Mississippi margin looks healthy for Trump. More to come shortly.

We have it on good information that this single magic live stream will tonight bring you speeches by the following:

Donald Trump – Jupiter, Florida;

Marco Rubio – Ponte Vedra, Florida;

John Kasich – Columbus, Ohio;

Ted Cruz – TBA;

Hillary Clinton – Detroit, Michigan;

Right now, you’ll notice, the stream is bringing you a Bernie Sanders rally from Miami:

Hillary Clinton is projected to win the Democratic race in Mississippi, AP immediately projects. Donald Trump looks solid on the GOP side – but Ted Cruz appears to be competitive, based on exit polling.

A mountain of information about what kind of margins we’re talking about to come shortly.

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The first polls are about to close in tonight’s voting, and we’re expecting pretty much immediate results out of Mississippi after the 8pm ET whistle.

Hillary Clinton has enjoyed very large polling leads in the state, while Donald Trump has enjoyed slightly less large polling leads.

Exit polls have indicated a Democratic electorate made up of 61% African American voters. On the Republican side, exit polls indicated that the majority of voters – 74% – made up their minds more than “a few days” ago. Of those who decided in the last few days, 42% said they went for Texas senator Cruz.

Visit our comprehensive results page here:

Our mapped county-by-county results tracker is the place to follow tonight’s returns – check it out here.

In the 20 minutes before polls close in Mississippi…

Would you be interested in knowing that 42% of Mississippi voters who made up their minds in the “last few days” decided to vote for Ted Cruz? Or that the Michigan Democratic electorate tonight appears to have been about 69% white and 22% black? Or that 61% of Mississippi Democratic voters today and tonight were African American, or that… well you get the point.

Jump into MSNBC political correspondent Steve Kornacki’s Twitter timeline for a wealth of exit polling results and theorize away. (The web site of ABC News is also a good source for exit poll results.)

Trump, who does not use pollsters, has apparently conducted an exit poll of one – and he likes what he’s seeing:

Just come up for air every five minutes to repeat to yourself, “exit polls are not predictive. Exit polls are not predictive. Exit polls are not predictive.”

But look at Kasich among late deciders in Michigan:

Digging through the comments in a recent callout we did to secret Donald Trump supporters, we noticed a very striking trend: a big chunk of people who contacted us were Bernie Sanders fans who said that if he failed to win the Democratic nomination they intended to switch their vote not to Hillary Clinton, but to Donald Trump.

Is that you? Are you that? We’re fascinated and need you to tell us more:

On the steps of the Mississippi statehouse on Tuesday, a collection of lawyers and pastors led a protest against the state flag – the last in the nation to feature the Confederate battle flag, writes Guardian US southern correspondent Matthew Teague from Jackson:

The protestors appealed to the one authority who may carry more weight in Mississippi than heritage does.

“The God of Jacob,” said Carlos Moore, an attorney who has filed a federal suit against the state and its governor, Phil Bryant. “If God is with us, who can be against us?”

Mississippi’s flag includes the Confederate emblem in its upper left quadrant. Tension around the flag has increased in recent years as similar flags in other southern states have come down. The latest was in South Carolina, and a lawyer from that state, Justin Bamberg, has joined Moore in his suit against Mississippi.

Holding a microphone on the Capitol steps, Bamberg addressed the state’s leaders directly.

“Mr. Governor, if you are listening, I urge you to exhibit true leadership,” he said. “Do the right thing.”

Bryant has denounced the suit as an effort to override the people’s will – in 2001, Mississippi residents voted to keep the flag’s current design.

In the meantime the state’s attorney general, Jim Hood, has said that he personally feels the flag should be changed, but considers it his duty to defend the state against Moore’s suit.

On Tuesday the church atmosphere peaked when Jamal Bryant, pastor of Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple, addressed the crowd. “I am here today because the Dukes of Hazzard were here yesterday,” he said, referencing a campaign stop by presidential contender Donald Trump. The crowd erupted, and many people raised their fists.

“Trump is a living Confederate flag,” the pastor said. “America has got to zoom in on Mississippi, and woe to us if we think it’s just about a flag.”

The protesters took up a chant: “Bring it down! Bring it down!”

Moore took the microphone again: “And the church said?”

“Amen!” the crowd responded.

Moore is 39, and after the demonstration he told the Guardian that he’s suing Mississippi for personal reasons. “I’m doing it for my daughter,” he said. She’s 5. “I’m doing it for her generation.”

Behind him, high on the statehouse steps, two members of the next generation of voters held a homemade sign. “This is not my flag,” it read. And “Pro-black does not mean anti-white.”

The girls, Maisie Brown, 14, and Brianna Cry, 16, said they came to the protest looking for insight from older people. “We’just learned about this two days ago,” Brown said. “I just learned about the meaning behind the flag.”

At the edges of the protest one woman stood openly weeping, holding a photo of her son. “He disappeared into the Mississippi system,” Pamela Bennett said. Her son, 27-year-old Deonte, was serving a three-year conviction for marijuana possession, and returned to prison in November for parole violation. Two months later, on 5 January, he died in his cell. She said she was never allowed to see or speak with him while he was in custody, and has not yet received an explanation for how he died.

“I’m here because the flag represents the mindset that you can just disappear into the system,” she said. “That’s what the flag means to me.”

Name: Dale Williams

Age: 53

Occupation: Plasma cutting-machine operator

Voting for: Donald Trump

In Lucedale, Mississippi, Dale Williams only made up his mind as he entered the George County courthouse.

“Trump,” he said. He shrugged his shoulders inside his denim overalls. “If he wins, great, if he doesn’t, that’s all right too.”

Mainly, he said, he feels nostalgic for an America as he remembers it from his childhood.

“It was different when I was growing up, and I want a president who can take us back to there,” he said. “We we ever make it back? Probably not. But we can do better than we are now.”

His guiding principles were two, he said: “Biblical values, and the Constitution. I believe that’s what the founding fathers had in mind when they set things in motion.”

A poll released this afternoon from WSJ and NBC has found that the contest between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to be Republican presidential nominee appears closer than previously thought, writes Guardian US data editor Mona Chalabi:

The national poll, which was conducted with just 397 respondents between March 3 and 6, found that Trump has the support of 30% of Republican primary voters – 3 percentage points ahead of Ted Cruz and 8 percentage points ahead of Kasich (who, after months of polling in single digits, appears to have grown in popularity in the past week).

Marco Rubio was in fourth place with just 20% of respondents selecting him as their first choice for Republican nominee.

Partly because of the low number of respondents, the margin of error on this poll is considerable – plus or minus 4.9 percentage points which could change the results significantly.

Compared to other national polls, collected and averaged by the site Real Clear Politics, Trump’s lead seems small – five polls collected between February 19 and March 6 (including the latest from WSJ/NBC) find an average Trump lead of 15.2 percentage points.