tonight the manhunt to find him. nightly news begins right now. good evening from lex headquarters on super tuesday, a night that could be the tipping point in both the republican and democratic races for the presidential nomination. 12 states are in play tonight with the first poll closings just a half hour from now. but ahead of that, we have a new snapshot of the state of the race nationally. republican donald trump has a 2-1 lead over marco rubio, who s now in second place, according to a new nbc news/survey monkey poll. democrats, hillary clinton with a 10-point lead nationally over bernie sanders. will she pull away from sanders for good? will trump close the deal tonight? there s an awful lot to cover. our team is in place. let s start with the trump reporter: another dramatic entrance for what s shaping up to be a dramatic super tuesday. trump is riding high. chris christie by his side. and brushing off the insults. he said i had small hands? they re not small
and rubio are vying for first place. again, that s virginia. in vermont, republican race too early to call. let s look at the democrats now. in georgia, nbc news projects hillary clinton is the winner in georgia. in virginia, nbc news again projects hillary clinton will win. vermont, bernie sanders home state, we project he will win in vermont. bernie sanders wins the vermont democratic primary. chuck todd is with me right now. your first thoughts as the evening begins? i think the bill surprise is virginia republicans, too close to call, good news for marco rubio. if there was a state that he had a shot at winning it was virginia. moderate electorate. anybody can vote in the primary and there s a lot of evidence a lot of democrats may have turned out to help rubio in virginia. so a big deal. if you re ted cruz and marco rubio you re not happy about that georgia result. poll closed that s a big win for trump, a premonition of what arkansas and alabama could look like. we
8:00 eastern time. and of course we ll be back on as we characterize those races for you. you see alabama, massachusetts, oklahoma, tennessee will be up next. i m lester holt at nbc news election headquarters. we ll see you a bit later on. we are back with our continueing nightly news coverage of this super tuesday. the polls have closed in georgia, vermont, virginia. you ve seen the results. let s get to nbc s kristen welker with the clinton campaign in miami. what s the latest from there? reporter: the crowd erupting into cheers as they have learned secretary clinton has won georgia and virginia. campaign, hoping to build on its momentum in order to claim victory tonight she needs her entire southern firewall to hold. that includes states like arkansas, alabama, and tennessee. still, the campaign says the earliest it could put the race out of reach mathematically is march 15th. that s when florida votes. and one of the reasons she s holding her watch party here. clint
being secretly taped. what she does when she enters a hotel room now. a wild chase. a kidnapping suspect at large after a police pursuit, kids in the car. tonight the manhunt to find him. nightly news begins right now. good evening from lex headquarters on super tuesday, a night that could be the tipping point in both the republican and democratic races for the presidential nomination. 12 states are in play tonight with the first poll closings just a half hour from now. but ahead of that, we have a new snapshot of the state of the race nationally. republican donald trump has a 2-1 lead over marco rubio, who s now in second place, according to a new nbc news/survey monkey poll. democrats, hillary clinton with will she pull away from sanders for good? will trump close the deal tonight? there s an awful lot to cover. our team is in place. let s start with the trump campaign and nbc s katy tur. reporter: another dramatic entrance for what s shaping up to be a dramatic sup
vermont, bernie sanders home state, we project he will win in vermont. bernie sanders wins the vermont democratic primary. chuck todd is with me right now. your first thoughts as the evening begins? i think the bill surprise is virginia republicans, too close to call, good news for marco rubio. if there was a state that he had a shot at winning it was virginia. moderate electorate. anybody can vote in the primary and there s a lot of evidence a lot of democrats may have turned out to help rubio in virginia. so a big deal. if you re ted cruz and marco rubio you re not happy about that georgia result. the fact that we could call that poll closed that s a big win for trump, a premonition of what arkansas and alabama could look like. we ll be looking at four more states. we ll have closings coming up at 8:00 eastern time. and of course we ll be back on as we characterize those races for you. you see alabama, massachusetts, oklahoma, tennessee will be up election headquarters