Hillary Clinton sets sights on Trump and general election after seven-state sweep on Super Tuesday

Hillary Clinton looked every inch the Democratic Party's chosen presidential nominee as Super Tuesday wound down and she snatched victories in seven of 11 states to pick up the lion's share of delegates.

She skipped over Democrat rival Bernie Sanders to take aim at Donald Trump, the man who appeared to also be cruising into the general election.

Clinton was declared the victor in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Massachusetts, states with the largest number of delegates in the Super Tuesday contests.

Sanders won his home state of Vermont (86% to Clinton's 13% with 83% of the vote counted), Oklahoma , the Colorado caucus and the Minnesota primary.

Clinton's wins came on the heels of her massive victory over Sanders by nearly 50 percentage points in South Carolina. That contest revealed overwhelming support for Clinton by African American voters, which helped her to sweep Super Tuesday states in the South, noted the Washington Post.

In Virginia, exit polls showed her winning 84% of black voters; in Georgia, 83%; in Tennessee, 82% ; in Arkansas, 88%. She also scored big with Hispanic voters, winning them by a 2-to-1 margin in Texas.

Clinton graciously congratulated Sanders on his "strong showing and campaign" at her campaign headquarters in Miami, Florida, then immediately pivoted to attack the man she already sees as her key rival for the White House: Donald Trump.

She jabbed at Trump's repeated slogan vowing to "make America great again," noting: "America never stopped being great; we have to make America whole."

In a thinly veiled slam at Trump and his position against immigrants and his push for building a wall along the entire border between the US and Mexico, Clinton said it was a time for "love and kindness," not hate.

"Instead of building walls, we're going to break down barriers.

"It's clear tonight that the stakes of this election have never been higher," she added. "And the rhetoric we're hearing on the other side has never been lower."

Sanders vowed to press on in his battle to be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.

"We have come a very long way in 10 months," he told supporters at his campaign headquarters in Vermont.

"At the end of tonight, 15 states will have voted. Thirty-five states remain. Let me assure you that we are going to take our fight for economic justice, for social justice, for environmental sanity, for a world of peace, to every one of those states."