US Election 2016: Sanders wins in Washington and Alaska

Bernie Sanders has won two more US states in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, as he tries to close the gap on Hillary Clinton. Senator Sanders took the biggest prize of the day, Washington state, and Alaska. Hawaii also went to the polls.

Mr Sanders was projected to have won 72% of the vote in Washington against 27% for Mrs Clinton.

And US TV networks gave him about 79% of the vote in Alaska, against 21% for Mrs Clinton.

Results are yet to emerge from Hawaii but initial projections suggest another Bernie Sanders victory.

Washington was the most significant of the three states voting on Saturday, with 101 delegates up for grabs. There were 16 delegates on offer in Alaska and 25 in Hawaii.

In spite of his victories, Mr Sanders faces a struggle to overhaul Mrs Clinton's overall lead. Going into Saturday's votes, Mrs Clinton led Mr Sanders by 1,223 delegates to 920.

When superdelegates - party officials who can support either candidates - who have so far declared their allegiance are included, Mrs Clinton was ahead by 1,692 to 949.

It takes 2,383 delegates to win.

Bigger battles ahead

Celebrating via Twitter, Mr Sanders said: "Thank you, Alaska! Together we are sending a message that this government belongs to all of us... Washington, thank you for your huge support! It is hard for anybody to deny that our campaign has the momentum."

Mr Sanders earlier told supporters in Wisconsin: "This is what momentum is about. Don't let anybody tell you we can't win the nomination or win the general election. We're going to do both of those things."

Mr Sanders had spent the week on the west coast, rallying support among liberals and the left-wing.

Late on Friday in Seattle's Safeco baseball stadium, he repeated key elements of his policy platform, urging economic equality and universal health care.

He said: "Real change historically always takes place from the bottom on up when millions of people come together. We need a political revolution!"

Mr Sanders is trying to build on overwhelming victories in last Tuesday's caucuses in Idaho and Utah.

However, he suffered defeat in Arizona, and although his delegate haul from the three states was 20 higher than Mrs Clinton, he failed to make major inroads into her lead.

Mrs Clinton has pointed out that she has "2.6 million more votes" than Mr Sanders.

She campaigned less in the three states that voted on Saturday, perhaps expecting the defeats, and spent Easter with her family.

This week she focused on the deadly attacks in Brussels, condemning Republican rivals Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for their "reckless" foreign policies.

Despite Saturday's results, the battle will be won and lost in far bigger states still to come. In RealClearPolitics poll averages, Mrs Clinton has the lead over Mr Sanders by nine percentage points in California, 34 points in New York and 28 in Pennsylvania.

Calculations suggest Mr Sanders may need to win two-thirds of the remaining delegates - in primaries, caucuses and among so-far uncommitted super-delegates - the unelected officials who can vote for their candidate of choice at the party's election convention.