Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton regained their
stride in the presidential race Tuesday night, winning their respective
primaries in New York — and sending a message to their rivals that their
campaigns are back on track after recent stumbles.
Trump, in his home state, notched what appeared to be
his biggest victory yet. Speaking to cheering supporters Tuesday night
at Trump Tower, he declared: “We don’t have much of a race anymore.”
“[Texas] Senator [Ted] Cruz is just about
mathematically eliminated,” Trump claimed. “We’re really, really
rockin’.” Indeed, Cruz's poor showing left him with no mathematical
chance of clinching the nomination before the Republican convention in
July, though Trump could still end up short of the needed 1,237 needed
to seal victory before the gathering.
With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Trump had
garnered 60 percent of the vote, his highest total in any state. He had
claimed at least 89 of New York's 95 Republican delegates.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich finished second in the state
with 25 percent of the vote, leaving Cruz to finish third with 15
percent. Kasich was awarded at least three delegates, leaving Cruz in
danger of getting shut out.
As of Tuesday night, Trump had 845 delegates. Cruz had 559, and Kasich had 147.
Cruz, who infamously panned Trump's "New York values"
earlier in the primary, had been bracing for a tough showing in the
Empire State and showed no signs of throwing in the towel. The Texas
senator was already looking ahead, turning his attention to
Pennsylvania, where he delivered a speech calling on Americans to join
together to move the country forward.
"It is time for us to get up, shake it off and be who we were destined to be,” he said.
In the Democratic race, Clinton soundly defeated
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in her adopted home state, which she
represented in the Senate for eight years. Despite the Brooklyn-born
Sanders’ hard-fought attempt at an upset, the former secretary of state
successfully staved off that possibility Tuesday night. With 94 percent
of precincts reporting, Clinton had 58 percent to Sanders’ 42 percent.
“There’s no place like home,” Clinton said at her victory rally.
Clinton claimed the race for the Democratic
nomination is now entering the “home stretch” and “victory is in sight.”
In an apparent bid to bridge divides in the party amid an increasingly
bitter primary, she directed a message to Sanders voters: “There is much
more that unites us than divides us.”
Clinton and Trump both were seeking rebound victories
Tuesday after recent setbacks. Cruz had complicated Trump's path to the
nomination by winning recent contests like Wisconsin and getting allies
elected to state delegate slates. On the Democratic side, Sanders had
been on a winning streak up until Tuesday – winning seven of the eight
prior contests.
Whether Trump and Clinton's performance Tuesday will
help either wrap up the race in the coming weeks remains an open
question. The campaigns head next to five Eastern states that vote next
Tuesday: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware.
It’s potentially friendly territory for the
front-runners. But unless Trump can drive Kasich and Cruz out of the
race, the billionaire businessman still may have to fight all the way to
the final primary contests on June 7 – including delegate-rich
California, which may end up being the deciding race – to see if he can
clinch the nomination.
On the Democratic side, Clinton could easily attain
the necessary 2,383 delegates to win by June. The question is whether
Sanders would accept it – as her tally includes the support of party
insiders known as “superdelegates,” and the Sanders campaign has
suggested they shouldn’t count toward that 2,383-delegate threshold.
As of Wednesday morning, Clinton had 1,893 total delegates, compared with Sanders’ 1,180.
Sanders also campaigned in Pennsylvania Tuesday. He
hammered his campaign themes about a “rigged” economy and “corrupt”
campaign finance system, while urging voters to join him in challenging
the status quo.
“We’re gonna win this election,” Sanders
vowed. However, his senior adviser Tad Devine told the Associated Press
that the campaign planned to "sit back and assess where we are" after a
next week's contests.
According to an Associated Press tally, Clinton won
at least 135 of New York's 247 delegates. Sanders had won 104, with
eight delegates outstanding.
The importance of every last delegate has increased
in recent weeks as Cruz has appeared to outmaneuver Trump’s campaign in
the behind-the-scenes preparations for July’s convention.
Cruz has been laying the groundwork for a contested
convention – one in which where no candidate has the required number of
delegates – by getting allies elected as delegates. That way, if voting
extends to a second round, some of those pledged to Trump on the first
round could peel off and support Cruz. This has heightened the pressure
on Trump to clinch the nomination before the convention.
A Kasich campaign memo, meanwhile, touted the Ohio
governor’s chances in the upcoming state contests – and his prospects
for securing delegate support in the event of a contested convention.
“The next 7 days are absolutely critical," the memo concluded. "It’s now or never to stop Trump and save the Republican Party."
The primary-day voting was not without its problems
in New York. Voters ran into an array of polling-site glitches earlier
Tuesday as they tried to cast ballots – with some locations opening late
and others using broken machines.
The Wall Street Journal reported
that some voters waited hours to cast ballots at a site in Brooklyn,
where workers apparently did not have the keys when it was supposed to
open Tuesday morning. Elsewhere in the borough, voters reportedly were
turned away due to technical problems.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also responded
Tuesday to reports that thousands of registered Democrats have been
dropped from the rolls, especially in Brooklyn. In a statement, the
mayor called for major reforms to the election board and voiced support
for an audit -- which the city comptroller has ordered.
“It has been reported to us from voters and voting
rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous
errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters
from the voting lists,” he said in a statement. “I am calling on the
Board of Election to reverse that purge and update the lists again …”