DHAKA: Bernie Sanders has beaten Hillary Clinton in the Maine caucuses, the latest contest in the battle to be the Democratic presidential candidate.

With 91% of the vote counted, Vermont Senator Sanders is polling 64%, while former Secretary of State Clinton has 36%, reports the BBC.

In the Republican race, Marco Rubio easily won Puerto Rico’s primary, beating billionaire Donald Trump.

Clinton and Trump remain overall leaders in the nomination campaigns.

Sunday night saw Clinton and Sanders clash on a number of issues in a CNN-hosted debate in Flint, Michigan.

They traded accusations on economy and trade, with Clinton saying her rival voted against a bailout of the US car industry in 2009.

‘I went with them. You did not. If everybody had voted the way he (Sanders) did, I believe the auto industry would have collapsed, taking four million jobs with it,’ Clinton said.

Sanders countered by saying, ‘I will be damned if it was the working people of this country who have to bail out the crooks on Wall Street’.

He described the measures taken at the time as ‘the Wall Street bailout where some of your (Clinton’s) friends destroyed this economy’.

In Saturday’s round of voting, Sanders took two states - Kansas and Nebraska - but Clinton maintained her Democratic front-runner status after a big victory in Louisiana.

BDST: 1438 HRS, MAR 07, 2016
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