this is "nightline." >> tonight, judgment day. for the presidential hopefuls. donald trum wp a huge win in florida, forcing native son marco rubio out of the race. but with underdog john kasich scoring big in ohio, could he be the one to take down trump? and with a projected win in three of the states up for grabs today, could hillary clinton have finally put bernie sanders behind her? plus the a-list activist taking a stand for the millions forced to flee syria. power couple george and amal clooney meeting with the refugees. while many are still fighting to escape the deadly grasp of isis, we travel to the front lines, where the battle still rages on. and the ex-correctional officer who says he was o.j.'s prison bff. speaking out on why he says the inmate is still living a life of

says recently about the knife found at his former estate. but first, a look at the results of tonight's primaries.

good evening. thanks for joining us. another epic night in the fight for the white house. for the democrats hillary clinton scores a convincing string of wins.

front-runner status. as for the republicans, despite trump's success tonight that race is just as unpredictable and unprecedented as ever. as we go now to abc's david wright in ohio, where a win for the election. david. >> reporter: good evening, juju. from john kasich headquarters outside cleveland a jubilant mood here tonight. this is one state where donald trump had a real fight on his hands today. and john kasich, the governor here, won his home state, ensuring that he now moves forward in the republican contest, which now becomes a three-man race. beware the ides of march. march 15th. the man who would be an american caesar was wounded tonight. this wasn't quite the sweeping victory he had predicted. he was triumphant in florida. >> thank you very much, everybody. >> reporter: donald trump easily trounced marco rubio in his home state. the margin, huge. tonight rubio suspended his

>> while today my campaign is suspended, the fact that i've even come this far is evidence of how special america truly is. >> reporter: here in ohio john kasich was hoping to avoid the same fate. >> so good. >> reporter: tonight we were with him backstage as he was shooting hoops and shooting the moon, that he actually pulled it off. >> looks like you've got some game tonight. >> i've got game with basketball every night. >> reporter: this was the biggest day of voting since super tuesday. going into tonight, ohio and florida were the biggest potential road blocks for trump because kasich and rubio enjoyed home state advantage. here in ohio it was neck and neck right down to the wire. >> very exciting to come into ohio and cast a vote for me for president of the united states. pretty amazing. >> reporter: kasich is the one republican who has continued to take the high road, refusing even today to take a pot shot at trump. >> it strikes me you're the one republican who hasn't gone down into the gutter at least.

you? >> oh, no question. after languishing in the shadows for the whole time and, you know, really being ignored, i think that maybe that quiet positiveness is translating through. >> reporter: he says tonight the voters have finally noticed. ohio has an open primary. >> i need you to make a choice for the ballot today. >> reporter: allowing independent voters to choose whether they'll vote in the republican or the democratic contest. today we met democratic voters who gamed it out. >> what's your strategy? >> to vote for someone that i think will knock someone else out that i do not approve of. >> reporter: mary dunn was cagey about it. we had to play 20 questions. >> i'm guessing you voted in the republican race. >> i did. >> and i'm guessing you went with the local, with the home town hero. >> probably. >> reporter: she wasn't alone. ohio officials say 10% of democrats chose to vote republican this year. >> democrats come into the

different states. i think in ohio they came in and the exit polls show they actually voted for john kasich in the course of this. and i think that was their effort to sort of say we're going to stop trump. even the democrats are trying to get involved in the stop trump movement. >> reporter: at sliman's restaurant boasting cleveland's biggest corned beef sandwiches one of the waitresses told us she was going to vote right after she finished peeling potatoes ahead of the st. patrick's day rush. >> vote for kasich. >> reporter: she told us she wasn't thrilled with the choice. she says her whole family sees it as the lesser of evils. >> what was your son's joke about -- >> picking a presidential candidate this year is like picking what sexually transmitted disease i'd be most comfortable with. >> reporter: donald trump has plenty of supporters in florida where the choice appears to have been more cud and dry. >> i think i've seen enough of professional politicians, so i voted for donald trump. >> reporter: he's come out on top of every poll in florida since july. even after rubio tried to match

>> and you know what they say about men with small hands. [ cheers ] you can't trust them. >> reporter: trump then took special relish in mocking him. >> he's little. l-i-d-d-l-e. little. little marco. >> reporter: the contest in florida ended up looking a little bit like trump's star turn in the wwe. remember the battle of the billionaires on wrestlemania? >> how are you doing? >> reporter: maybe this is what vladimir putin has to look forward to, eh? >> thank you all very much. >> reporter: for now kasich and ted cruz appear to be the only two candidates who still have some hope of challenging trump. both of them far behind in the delegate count. today on hugh hewitt's radio show cruz ruled out ever serving as trump's vp. >> i have absolutely zero interest in doing that. >> reporter: not that trump had

>> if trump beats cruz next week in arizona, then you can see a path for trump to get very close to 50% of the delegates. if cruz can beat trump in arizona, then i think we really are looking almost certainly at a contested convention. >> reporter: tonight trump had a surprisingly strong showing from female voters. >> bimbo. >> dog. >> fat pig. >> reporter: despite this political ad. >> you know, it really doesn't matter what they write. as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of [ bleep ]. >> reporter: but that doesn't seem to faze him. as he told "good morning america" this morning. >> we're doing well at every category. but i'm leading with women and i'm very happy about it. >> reporter: according to abc news exit polling, he has won states. >> thank you, ohio! >> reporter: on the democratic side this was a big night for hillary clinton. staving off a challenge from bernie sanders in most of the rust belt. tonight clinton sounded triumphant. >> we are moving closer to securing the democratic party

election in november! >> reporter: and she even mentioned him by name for the first time in a primary night speech. >> we can't lose what made america great in the first place. and this isn't just about donald trump. all of us have to do our part. >> reporter: for clinton the road to the democratic nomination now looks fairly smooth. but after that it could get rocky. today she talked with my colleague cecilia vega. >> donald trump has said he yet. it looks like this could be a general campaign that is very ugly and very personal. does that give you any pause? >> no. not a bit. >> your face doesn't even move. >> no. not a bit. you know, look, i've been standing up to bullies my entire life. he can run whatever kind of campaign he wants. i have really thick skin. and it's not about me. it's about every american and what we're going to do together. >> reporter: if the past week is anything to go by, we are in for a bruising campaign.

everybody. thank you. >> reporter: the primary still ongoing but the general election fight already looming large. i'm david wright for "nightline" in cleveland, ohio. up next the hollywood power couple fighting for the refugees displaced by the bloody conflict in the middle east. we're on the ground in the war-torn region. but first, time for political punch. hillary clinton is no stranger to being fodder for late-night comics. "snl" poking fun at her seemingly morphing into bernie sanders. >> i am sick and tired of hearing about my own damn e-mails! >> reporter: but tonight she's in on the joke. the quirky comics of comedy central's "broad city" having some fun with their love for clinton. on their episode airing tomorrow. >> she walked on this floor.

take it in. mm. >> that is power. >> reporter: the candidate rounding out her millennial appeal, tweeting "you're welcome at the real hq any time time @broadcity." next sketch at the oval office. >> sorry, we're just so excited. >> just take your time. what backache? what sore wrist? what headache? advil makes pain a distant memory. nothing works faster

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thirst for the extraordinary.

they are perhaps the most famous advocates for refugees. george and amal clooney now speaking out to help the millions forced to flee.

to escape their embattled homeland. and as abc's alex marquardt shows us, that fight is far from over. >> reporter: they're the red carpet power couple. actor george clooney and his wife, renowned human rights lawyer amal. >> i'm of irish descent. and in america 100 years ago we were refugees. >> reporter: but in a new video released today by the international rescue committee they're in front of a very different kind of audience. syrian refugee families now living in germany. >> irish were treated terribly in america for a period of time and not accepted. and america learned to accept all of these ideas. it's what our country is, is a country of immigrants. and we have not recently done a very good job of remembering who we are. >> reporter: the clooneys sharing their own stories and shining a light on the stories of some of the millions who have

war in syria. today, the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict, the clooneys are not the only celebrities standing with refugees. >> families, children. >> struggling to stay alive. >> reporter: the cast of hbo's "game of thrones" featured in another irc video released today. and angelina jolie visited refugees living in camps in lebanon. >> my own family's from lebanon and they also ran away from a war and were lucky enough to be accepted by a european country. >> reporter: for amal clooney this cause is personal. she grew up in lebanon during a bloody 15-year civil war. >> many years later everybody's doing well. you know, my father has returned to beirut. i hope that as you say you will be able to go back to a safe and free syria. >> reporter: in many ways these

they made it to germany. >> germany! germany! >> reporter: which has taken in the highest number of refugees and migrants in europe since the war in syria ignited a massive humanitarian crisis. almost 5 million syrians have fled the country. tens of thousands making the deadly journey by boat to europe. and while their plight has dominated the headlines, millions more have remained trapped inside, unable to escape. two weeks ago we traveled to syria to try to tell their stories. i reported from syria many times, but this time it felt different. for the first time since the war began there's now a fragile cease-fire in place. on the outskirts of damascus near the front line these kids out playing in an empty lot shooting marbles told us that day something was missing. today they didn't bomb, this boy said. nothing?

few people i spoke with believed the relative quiet can last. but many are praying it does. >> my heart. on my baby. all. >> reporter: are tired of this war. >> all. all people here. >> reporter: hello. elsewhere, these people were from a town besieged by rebel groups, brought to us by pro-assad forces. but it's moments like these when the politics and propaganda fall away, leaving just the horrors of this war. 21-year-old jamila was in her house when a rocket fell on it, she told me, killing three relatives and blinding her. she was pregnant at the time and has since given birth to a daughter, kardinia, now three months old. "all i want is to see my child i've never seen," she said, "and to lift the siege on my village. people are dying there." >> it's clear these people were trotted out for the cameras. but what's also clear is they've suffered a lot and they're innocents who are caught between

>> reporter: this is not just dangerous but difficult to cover. which is why to visit a besieged town we had to rely on hezbollah, the lebanese militant group which the u.s. considers a terrorist organization. rare access to the group and a town they've surrounded. >> you look around here, driving through damascus, people are walking around, driving to work. it's incredible to think that just less than an hour down the road tens of thousands of people are living under siege. >> reporter: activists in the town of madaya say that dozens have died of starvation and that malnutrition is rampant. the world was shocked by videos like these posted all over social media. we can't verify those numbers or these videos. to get to madaya we followed hezbollah. >> there's a tank right there. a bunch of soldiers up there. >> reporter: one rule. we couldn't film them. we had hoped to meet residents from madaya in a buffer zone without going all the way in, where rebel groups including jihadi factions have control. but the residents were too

and hezbollah wouldn't let us go farther in. >> what we can't show you are about a dozen sir sxwran hezbollah guys who have accompanied us up here. we understand there are about 500 or 600 fighters in the town from different rebel factions. apparently, until the cease-fire went into place this would have been too dangerous a place to stand. >> reporter: this is one of 18 areas across syria that are under siege. half a million people are trapped by forces from all sides. the biggest number, around 200,000 200,000, by isis. the people of madaya and so many others used as pawns, unable to escape, longing for peace, for quiet, for a safer country. like the families george clooney met through the irc. >> these are people who have left because of incredible tragedy. and they're people who had real lives. and their worlds were destroyed. >> one of the reasons we've released videos with george clooney. one of the reasons that the "game of thrones" cast are so committed to working with us is they've seen a dehumanization of these people. and i think the most important

that it's not a great mass of people, it's a lot of individuals who have their own stories that deserve to be treated with dignity and with respect. >> reporter: overwhelmed by the historic wave of migrants and refugees, some european countries are deciding it's time to start closing their borders. leaving thousands camped out in tent cities living in a kind of purgatory while their fates are decided. few predict that this war that has ravaged syria for five agonizing years will end soon. but the temporary cease-fire has paved the way for peace talks, under way right now in geneva. a step, a glimmer of hope that a peace could at last be within reach. for "nightline" i'm alex marquardt in syria. >> our thanks to alex marquardt and bruno rover for that report. up next, the ex-correctional

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i for one find it hard to believe it's been 20 years since the so-called trial of the century. but so many are still transfixed by the o.j. simpson saga. now an ex-correctional officer who claims to be o.j.'s confidant is speaking out. >> i'm not black. i'm o.j. >> reporter: cocky and confident. it's the on-screen depiction of o.y. simpson in "american crime story." but tonight another image of the juice. as an aging inmate.

in prison. he's eating well. he's exercising well. >> reporter: retired correctional officer jeffrey felix telling his version of the story in a self-published book, "guarding the juice: how o.j. simpson became my prison bff." he claims he was simpson's closest confidant at this nevada prison. he retired in september. but he says a prison contact described how o.j. reacted to the recent news of a knife found at his former estate. >> he jokingly says, "if the knife is rusted, i can't be busted." >> reporter: but simpson slamming felix's claims. the inmate speaking through his lawyer telling abc news that the representation of their relationship is fantasy, wildly exaggerated and "in most instances blatantly false." and that felix never worked in the same unit where simpson was housed. >> if o.j. gets paroled, o.j. and i will be playing golf together. i can guarantee you that. >> the controversy continues. thanks for watching abc news.