What you missed over the weekend

Clinton crushed rival Bernie Sanders in South Carolina’s Democratic primary Saturday, winning nearly three-fourths of votes in the contest.

The blowout suggests Sanders’ challenge competing with Clinton in states with large percentages of black voters, a shortcoming that leaves Clinton poised to all but end the Democratic nomination contest by racking up delegates in March 1 “Super Tuesday” primaries.

Clinton’s clear path contrasts with the disarray in the GOP. Despite increasingly pointed, if belated, attacks by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Donald Trump too looks ready to romp on Super Tuesday. Polls show Trump leading most Super Tuesday states.

But while he may be hard to stop in the GOP primary fight, Trump spent the weekend demonstrating why political handicappers believe he would be a disastrous general election candidate.

Sandwiched between endorsements by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump made a series of jaw-dropping statements that bolstered his reputation for racial insensitivity.

Trump has a devoted base of supporters who can win him most Republican primaries. But national polls suggest voters who view Trump favorably are outnumbered, nearly two to one, by those with unfavorable impressions of the real estate developer.

Those numbers mean Trump’s nomination could hand over not just the White House, but control of the Senate and the Supreme Court to Democrats. Alarmed by that prospect, Republican leaders are reportedly eyeing various long-shot efforts to stop Trump, or distance the party from him.

But other conservative leaders, believing Trump’s nomination is already inevitable, urged colleagues to stop attacking him for fear of aiding upcoming Democratic attacks.

Here is what you may have missed this weekend:

Hillary blows out Bernie: In a state where Barack Obama’s support among African-American voters handed Clinton a devastating primary loss in 2008, she turned the tables, winning a more decisive victory than the current president did. The former secretary of state received just under 74 percent of votes cast. Sanders won about 26 percent. Exit polls showed around 90 percent of African-American voters chose Clinton.

“We got killed,” Sanders acknowledged Sunday.

Barring a sudden shift, the results also terminated Sander’s slim hope of an extended fight with Clinton. The majority of states with delegates up for grabs look more like South Carolina, where 60 percent of Democratic voters are black, than the far less diverse states, New Hampshire and Iowa, where Sanders won and almost won.

Trump trouble ahead: Donald Trump won several endorsements this weekend. Christie, Maine Gov. Paul LePage, former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Sessions will help Trump round out an endorsement page that until Friday consisted of little more than former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, whose first name was misspelled. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also sounded Sunday like he may soon support the former star of “The Apprentice.”

But Trump himself has said that endorsements don’t matter, a view shared by many campaign analysts. Other factors will weigh more in the general election.

Put it this way: When a presidential candidate spends much of Sunday struggling, on national television, to distance himself from the Ku Klux Klan, Benito Mussolini and the mafia, he has a problem.

Trump’s travails began Thursday night when Rubio, along with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, laid into the GOP front-runner during a debate on CNN.

Rubio called Trump a policy novice without any real proposals and a failed businessman who inherited his wealth from his father but repeatedly left businesses bankrupt. The Florida senator said Trump is a hypocrite who employs illegal immigrants while threatening to deport undocumented workers and rants against free trade while hawking “tacky ties” made in China. Rubio called Trump “a con artist” whose now-defunct Trump University was a “sham” that fleeced attendees of tens of thousands of dollars each.

Defending himself at a rally Saturday, Trump said lawsuits he faces over the the school should have been dismissed but for “tremendous hostility” towards him by the presiding judge.

“He happens to be Spanish, which is fine. He’s Hispanic,” Trump said, before noting he may press the judge to recuse himself.

The aside implied a Hispanic cannot fairly consider a case involving Trump.

Trump followed that assertion by declining during a Sunday appearance on CNN to repudiate support from white supremacists including the Ku Klux Klan. Asked to condemn the group and David Duke, the former Klan leader who urged white voters to back Trump, the GOP front-runner passed, saying he was not familiar with Duke and would have to first research the group.

Within minutes of that claim, watchers unearthed evidence that Trump has publicity discussed Duke and his KKK affiliation.

Trump tried later Sunday to undo the damage, tweeting a video of his Friday statement disavowing Duke. He did not explain why he failed to tell millions of CNN viewers the same thing.

In a separate appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump stumbled when alerted he was lured by the gossip site Gawker into retweeting a statement by Mussolini, the Italian fascist leader during World War II who allied with Nazi Germany.

“What difference does it make?” Trump asked in an inadvertent ode to Clinton’s famous statement during a Benghazi hearing. “Mussolini was Mussolini.”

Meanwhile, taking advantage of Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, Cruz alleged Sunday that Trump’s taxes could reveal ties to organized crime in New York. “We don’t know what it is he is hiding,” Cruz said on “Meet the Press.”

Cruz’s allegation is probably baseless, but it highlights the vulnerability of candidates, like Mitt Romney in 2012, who are slow to release tax returns.

Rubio revs up Trump taunts: Honing the mocking attack he launched at Thursday’s debate, Rubio hit Trump all weekend with increasingly pointed attack.

“Donald Trump is nothing but a first-rate con artist who is trying to carry out a first rate con” on voters, Rubio said.

“We cannot be a party who nominates someone who refuses to condemn white supremacists,” Rubio said to cheers. “Not only is that wrong, that makes him unelectable.”

GOP ponders whether drop Trump: With Republicans opposed to Trump still split between Rubio, Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, establishment Republicans have watched their hopes of unifying behind an anti-Trump candidate fade.

But GOP leaders continue to weigh options. The New York Times reported Saturday that Republican leaders, and multiple presidential campaigns, are eyeing plans to try to block Trump’s nomination by maneuvers aimed at capturing his pledged delegates at the party’s convention.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has vowed to drop Trump “like a hot rock” in the general election, according the report. McConnell is crafting plans for Senate Republican candidates to run ads denouncing Trump, the story said, in an uphill bid to distance themselves from an unpopular presidential nominee.

Other conservatives, however, argued attacking Trump will only increase the damage to the party. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch tweeted that Republicans should avoid attacking each other. Murdoch said Trump can defeat Clinton in a general election.

The weekend events did little to undo Clinton’s continued vulnerability as a candidate. An investigation into her use of a private server and email address while she was secretary of state might still hurt her.

With a Democrat in the White House, a recession or national security incident could also hurt Clinton in November. But with her road to the Democratic nomination unobstructed and the GOP in disarray, Clinton starts the week with newly improved odds.