Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both scored resounding victories in Arizona, the biggest prize in Tuesday's primaries, as the presidential front-runners of both the Republican and Democratic parties extended their leads in their party nomination races, moving a step closer to a November general election clash.
Trump took all of Arizona's 58 delegates, saying his victory in the winner-take-all primary was much larger than he had expected, CNN reported.
However, Trump lost to rival Ted Cruz in the Utah primary as expected. The Texas senator was able to get at least 50 percent of the votes in Utah, allowing him to scoop all of the state's 40 delegates.
Trump now has a total of 739 delegates, needing just 498 more to get the 1,237 delegate-mark to clinch the Republican nomination. Cruz has 465 while Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 143 delegates, according to the Real Clear Politics latest tally on Wednesday.
Cruz and Kasich's only hopes of getting the nomination is by stopping Trump from reaching the 1,237-delegate mark and then hoping for a brokered convention where they would have a chance of upsetting the front-runner.
At the Democratic presidential contest, Bernie Sanders actually won more delegates than Clinton in the primaries held in Arizona, Utah and Idaho, Real Clear Politics tally showed.
Although he lost in Arizona, Sanders won morale-boosting victories in Utah and Idaho, picking up a total of 57 delegates from the three races. Clinton won 51.
However, Clinton still enjoys a huge lead in the delegate count. She currently has 1,681 delegates against Sanders' 927, needing just 702 more to reach the 2,383 delegate-mark to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Sanders' Utah and Idaho victories and strong showings in Washington state, Alaska and Hawaii on Saturday will bolster his campaign's insistence that he is right to stay in the race.
Meanwhile, Trump and Clinton both registered net negative ratings in double digits, indicating the front-runners for each party's presidential nominations are viewed negatively at historic levels, according to a new CBS/New York Times poll.
The ratings showed that Trump and Clinton are viewed more unfavourably than any front-runner for either party since 1984, when CBS began polling voters on the question.
On the Republican side, Trump scored a net negative of -33, with a favourable rating of 24 percent compared to 57 percent of voters who view him unfavourably. On the Democratic side, Clinton fares only slightly better with a net negative of -21, registering a 31 percent favourable rating and a 52 percent unfavourable rating, according to the poll.
