This week saw the most significant 24 hours to date in the race for the White House.
With nine states having held their primaries on the same day and a number of further states having held their caucuses, the first Tuesday in March has become known as Super Tuesday - and a key date in the lead up to November's election.
The day saw a huge number of delegates in play - delegates essentially being the representatives sent from the state to the national conventions held by both parties in July of this year, where they will name their presidential nominee.
There's no question the big winners this Super Tuesday were Donald Trump on the Republican side and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats.
Clinton was a big victor in the southern states, picking up seven wins on the night in Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Massachusetts and Arkansas, as well as Virginia.
Her rival candidate Bernie Sanders claimed four states - although it's an extraordinary result for the underdog candidate who seemed to stand no chance even a few months ago, the results confirmed the odds are very much against him.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump had another big night, further widening the gap between himself - the Republican frontrunner - and the other candidates for the party nomination.
So, with one big battle out of the way and more to come, what can we take away from the Super Tuesday results?
Democratic race
Image: Gerald Herbert / AP/Press Association Images
On the Democratic side, Larry Donnelly - Law Lecturer at NUI Galway - argues Super Tuesday "marked the beginning of the end for Bernie Sanders in terms of his viability for winning the nomination. That said, however, let's not forget the guy raised $40 million in the month of February through mostly small donations. And he accumulated a lot of delegates despite losing the vast majority of the contests".
"His candidacy now becomes more issues-focused," Larry continued. "It becomes about shaping the debate and the party platform. I think he's done a reasonably good job in making Hillary looking at some of the things that she could have been criticised for - namely forgetting the roots of the Democratic Party".
Larry argued that Senator Sanders has reminded Clinton that the core constituency of the party is still "people who work with their hands for a living and people who live paycheck to paycheck, and who are hurting on issues such as higher education and healthcare".
White House correspondent and political analyst Victoria Jones, speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, said that the Sanders camp "know they're in a certain amount of trouble". She said that Sanders only won with younger voters - he didn't win with older people, women, African-Americans or Hispanic voters.
"Hillary Clinton is starting, very slowly, to clean up," she stated.
Republican race
Image: Andrew Harnik / AP/Press Association Images
Larry Donnelly observed that it's becoming increasingly difficult for Marco Rubio - perceived as the 'establishment' favourite for the Republican candidacy - to catch up on Donald Trump.
"We're seeing a cross-section of states - from the deep south to the north east - where Donald Trump is running very well," Larry said. "If he wins Florida - and he intends to run very, very hard in Florida, where there's 99 delegates on a 'winner takes all' basis - I don't think there's any way [other candidates] can stop Trump".
Victoria Price reflected on what approach Trump is likely to be taking from here on out - arguing that we're likely to see some of his more outrageous and controversial policies and statements disappear.
"I think you're going to start to see more of a statesman Trump emerge," she said. "That other Trump is going to no longer exist, because he knows he has got to start getting moderates, independents and conservative Democrats [on board].
"The Trump that Hillary Clinton thinks she's going to run against is not the Trump that she's actually going to run against. For her sake, I hope she realises that".
With Trump's seemingly unstoppable forward momentum reportedly making many in the Republican party uneasy, is there anything the party establishment can do to halt the progress of the billionaire?
"What would have to happen is that the Republicans would have to consolidate around one candidate very quickly - that's not happening," Larry explained.
A number of other candidates - including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich - are picking up wins in individual states, but Trump is continuing to pick up delegates as the rest of the field remains deeply divided with no dominant opposition to the frontrunner.
"What could happen, theoretically, if Trump were to fall short of the 1,237 delegates he'll need for the Republican nomination... delegates on the convention floor are only bound to him in the first vote," Larry suggested. "If you were to fall shy... then things would get opened up and we could see all sorts of different scenarios playing out.
"The other thing that some people are mentioning - I don't think it's going to happen under any circumstances - is that some states later on in the process could opt to change their rules to advantage one or more of the so-called establishment candidates.
"What I think is the most likely scenario, and it would be an unprecedented one, is that Donald Trump will get the nomination, but unlike any election in recent memory a number of significant figures from the Republican party will either privately or publicly disavow his candidacy and support Hillary Clinton in the best interests of the country," Larry concluded.
Super Tuesday may be over, but the drama in this year's race for the White House is only just getting started...
