[Natalie Allen, Cnn Anchor:] Hillary Clinton proves her power among minority voters as she sweeps to victory in the South Carolina presidential primary. We'll look at what happens next. Sporadic violence in Syria but a cease-fire between the government and rebels appears to be largely holding. And Sly spies his first-ever Oscar at the age of 69. We have a preview of Hollywood's biggest night. And it is just hours away until the red carpet for the Oscars. Hello, everyone. We're live in Atlanta. This is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.
[Allen:] And we begin with the U.S. presidential race. South Carolina voters boosted Hillary Clinton to a huge win in the Southern state's primary.
[Hillary Clinton, Former Secretary Of State, Presidential Candidate:] Thank you so much, South Carolina. Thank you.
[Allen:] The Democratic front-runner beat rival Bernie Sanders Saturday by almost 50 points. Despite his loss, Sanders said his campaign is just getting started. Clinton has won three of four Democratic nominating contests so far.
[Clinton:] Today, you sent a message: in America when we stand together when we stand together, there is no barrier too big to break. We've now gone through four early states and I want to congratulate Senator Sanders on running a great race. And... and tomorrow, this campaign goes national. We are going to compete for every vote in every state. We're not taking anything and we're not taking anyone for granted.
[Allen:] Clinton's campaign, as she said, now full steam ahead to Super Tuesday. While celebrating her win there in South Carolina she did take a shot at Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Here's senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar on the campaign trail.
[Brianna Keilar, Cnn Senior Political Correspondent:] The Clinton campaign just relishing their big win here in South Carolina. Hillary Clinton's communications director, Jen Palmieri, is saying they did better than they expected they would. Campaign sources have been telling us they think Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. It was significant that in Clinton's speech, she outlined what her argument in a general election would be against Donald Trump.
[Clinton:] Despite what you hear, we don't need to make America great again. America has never stopped being great. But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls, need to be tearing down barriers.
[Keilar:] Publicly, Clinton aides are striking a cautious tone, saying they still have 46 states ahead of them. They have a long way to go. But, privately, they're not as cautious. One aide telling me they think they'll have this wrapped up by March 15th. We'll see a series of contests then following those series of contests that we're going to see on Tuesday for Super Tuesday. By mid-March, almost 60 percent of delegates will have been awarded. By then, aides think it will be clear there is no pathway to the nomination for Bernie Sanders Brianna Keilar, CNN, Columbia, South Carolina.
[Allen:] Yes, is there any hope for Bernie at this point? Well, earlier I spoke with Josh Kraushaar, political editor for "National Journal" about Hillary Clinton's big win there in South Carolina and her support among minority voters.
[Josh Kraushaar, Political Editor, National Journal:] Boy, a 45-plus point margin of victory in South Carolina. And not only was the victory huge, but she won African Americans by over 80 percent of the vote according to exit polls. She even tied Sanders with white voters in South Carolina. This was a decisive victory. It's going to give her crucial momentum heading next week into the big Super Tuesday states.
[Allen:] I was going to ask you, was it an issue primarily of geography, since he dominated in New Hampshire, but perhaps not then?
[Kraushaar:] The big challenge for Hillary Clinton was showing and proving that she could dominate, not just win, but dominate among African Americans and among Hispanics. And she showed that she thoroughly won the African American vote in both Nevada and South Carolina. And she won Hispanics. If you look at the precinct data out of Nevada, she did very well with the Hispanic voters, too. For a Democratic candidate and a Democratic primary, if you're doing well with non-white voters as well as Hillary Clinton has done, it's a pretty sure path to winning the Democratic nomination.
[Allen:] Well, she said in her acceptance speech, "We go national from here." So what must she achieve on the national stage come Super Tuesday?
[Kraushaar:] She's got a win the vast majority of delegates in states on Super Tuesday. And, frankly, most are concentrated in the South. They have similar demographics to South Carolina. States like that and also Texas with its sizable Hispanic population. So, there's an opportunity for Clinton to do, again, very well with Hispanic and African American voters and do well with the overall delegate count. Now Bernie Sanders is going to make a showing in the caucuses next week, Minnesota, Colorado and Massachusetts primary, three of the big states that the Sanders campaign is counting on. But when you just look at the likely delegate count if the momentum continue for Clinton, she's going to start to build what's looking like an insurmountable lead for the Clinton campaign.
[Allen:] What happened to the "Feel the Bern"? Where did that go? What turned it for Hillary?
[Kraushaar:] Well, look, Iowa and New Hampshire were about as favorable states as you can draw for the Sanders campaign. They're very liberal and they have very young and white Democratic electorates. Once we get to the South and the more diverse Democratic states, it was a bigger challenge for Sanders. Sanders always had to prove he could expand his own coalition to winning more non-white voters, to doing well with African Americans, at least making some inroads with that constituency. As we are seeing right now in South Carolina, not only that he did not make inroads, but he got wiped out. If he doesn't make any inroads by next week, the game is over for the Bernie Sanders campaign.
[Allen:] Well, there are certainly those that would want to trip up Hillary Clinton. I mean, from the emails, to Benghazi and now the speech transcripts, he still talked about that. Is there anything that he can say or that can happen that could trip her up at this point on her way to getting more delegates?
[Kraushaar:] Well, look, Hillary Clinton is her own worst enemy. She's certainly improved her stump speech. She sounded more empathetic in her victory speech tonight in South Carolina. But it's really her issue is in the general election. I mean, she has poor favorability numbers in the general election. A lot of people in the country still don't trust her outside of the Democratic base. So her big challenge looking forward is to think about the general election. But she hinted at some lines preparing for a match-up again Donald Trump in her victory speech tonight. But this is someone who's going to be focused primarily on November and less toward Bernie Sanders and the Democratic primary.
[Allen:] Well, it is Donald Trump and Hillary, she might need practice from Marco Rubio, maybe train with him, since he finally got his speed up there late in the game against The Donald this week. But we appreciate your thoughts. We'll talk with you again. Josh Kraushaar, political editor for "National Journal," thank you.
[Kraushaar:] Thanks, Natalie.
[Allen:] While Clinton extends her lead over Sanders with the victory, the Republicans are slugging it out, as always, on the campaign trail. And Marco Rubio and Donald Trump have definitely taken the gloves off. Well, Donald's always had them off but they've been going at each other non-stop since Thursday's debate, name-calling, insults, accusations. It seems like everything is fair game now and it's really getting personal. Here's what Rubio said about Trump Saturday.
[Sen. Marco Rubio , Fla., Presidential Candidate:] He's flying around on "hair force one" and tweeting. Here's the one tweet he put out, a pictures of me having makeup put on me at the debate, which is amazing to me that a guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on make-up.
[Rubio:] Donald Trump likes to sue people. He should sue whatever did that to his face.
[Donald Trump , Presidential Candidate:] But I will address little Rubio. This guy has a fresh mouth. He's a very nasty guy. But I actually thought that Ted Cruz was a liar. But Rubio is worse. I mean, he's worse. This lightweight Rubio, total lightweight. And little mouth on him, bing, bing, bing. Bing, bing, bing, bing.
[Allen:] We'll keep you posted on any more Rubio-Trump squabbles. There's sure to be a few more. We turn now to Ireland. Exit polls show Ireland's ruling coalition is not likely to be in power much longer. According to broadcaster RTE's polling, the coalition made up of Fine Gael- Labour got 32 percent of the vote in the national elections, that is far less than the 41 percent they need to be re-elected. Sinn Fein can you tell I have trouble with these could form a new coalition with a rival party, Fianna Fail, which would give them a majority or else a new election could be called. Iran's interior ministry says reformists are set to take over parliament perhaps even taking all 30 available seats in the country's first major election since last year's nuclear deal. The votes are still being counted. Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and current president Hassan Rouhani are leading in the race for the powerful assembly of experts. Senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen has more on the early results.
[Frederik Pleitgen, Cnn Senior International Correspondent:] If the early elections in Iran hold true then this could be a resounding victory for the moderates and the reform candidates here in this country. Now remember, there were two elections that took place, one of them was for the council of experts, which is a religious body that will vote for and elect the next supreme leader. So that election's very important. Here for the Tehran area, the votes have been counted. And of the 15 seats available, 12 have apparently gone to moderate and reformist candidates and only three have gone to conservatives. The picture looks fairly similar in the parliamentary elections, where, after about a third of the votes were counted in the Tehran area, it seems as though Mohammad Reza Aref, the head of the reformist movement, is on top. And of the 30 candidates for the seats available here in Tehran, at this point, the vast majority would also be moderates and reformers as well. However, the authorities here have warned that these results at this point are preliminary and it will take another three days for final results to come out. However, many people saw this election as a referendum on the policies of Hassan Rouhani and the centerpiece of those policies was, of course, the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers that, on the one hand, put significant curbs on Iran's nuclear program but also gave Iran sign sanctions relief in return. Many Iranians hope that that will lead to big economic growth in this country. And while many Iranians haven't seen that economic growth yet if the results for this election holds true, it seems as though Iranians are giving Hassan Rouhani a mandate to accelerate those reforms in the future Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.
[Allen:] An uneasy calm is stretching across most of Syria. Ahead here, we'll have the latest in a live report on the truce that's now in its second straight day.