Trump, Clinton appear unstoppable after wins in New York primaries
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REPUBLICAN Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton scored sweeping victories in nominating contests in their home state of New York, and immediately cited them in arguing they are all but unstoppable as their respective parties’ presidential nominees.
Trump’s crushing defeat of Ted Cruz in Tuesday’s primary election tilted the energy in the Republican race back to the frontrunner, just as Republican National Committee members began meeting in Florida yesterday to discuss their July convention, where the nominee will be chosen.
For the Democratic favorite, Clinton’s narrower victory over Bernie Sanders snapped a string of wins by the 74-year-old democratic socialist and gave her a much-needed lift with more tough fights ahead.
The eventual victors of the Democratic and the Republican nominating campaigns will face each other in November’s general election.
Trump’s win marked a rebound from his Wisconsin defeat two weeks ago. It set him up for another big night on Tuesday, when Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Maryland will hold their primaries.
With a campaign staff reboot and a more focused performance, Trump has sought to improve in recent weeks as a candidate. The tone of his victory speech was in keeping with a more measured style the often-brash billionaire has adopted.
“We don’t have much of a race anymore based on what I’m seeing on television,” he said.
“Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.”
Trump, 69, predicted some “amazing weeks” ahead for his campaign, but he has a long way to go to seal the nomination and begin trying to heal the wounds in his bitterly divided party.
Trump’s haul of most of New York’s 95 delegates moved him closer to the 1,237 needed to win the nomination outright. Anything short of that will lead to a contested convention when Republicans hold their national conclave in July in Cleveland.
“There’s only two issues left for Republicans: Will Trump get 50 percent of the delegates prior to Cleveland, and if not, how close will he be? New York gives him a nice boost, but it will take weeks before we know the answer,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary.
Cruz, a 45-year-old US senator from Texas, came in third in New York and gave his primary night speech in Philadelphia, where he was already focused on running in Pennsylvania. He called on Republicans to unite around his candidacy.
Ohio Governor John Kasich, 63, is seeking to use his second-place showing in New York as proof he is emerging as Trump’s key challenger in the states that come next on the calendar.
Clinton, a former US senator from New York, former secretary of state and former first lady, got nowhere near the knockout punch she needed to finally put Sanders away.
But the smile on her face as she gave her victory speech spoke volumes about how important New York was to her bid to become the United States’ first female president.
“Today you proved once again there’s no place like home,” she said. “This one was personal.”
The race for the Democratic nomination is now in “the home stretch, and victory is in sight,” she said.
Clinton, 68, was scheduled to campaign in Philadelphia yesterday. Sanders flew home to Vermont to take a day off the campaign trail.
Clinton’s win made it nearly impossible for Sanders to overtake her lead in the number of delegates needed to win the nomination.
Dilawar Syed, a tech entrepreneur, and co-founder and vice chairman of the AAPI Victory Fund, a Super PAC focused on mobilizing Asian-American voters, said it looked like Clinton has the nomination.
“Clearly Senator Sanders has a lot of supporters and enthusiasm there. He also has raised a lot of good resources,” he said.
“I think the primary will go on for some time, but just looking at the numbers, we know where this is going.”
Nationally, the race for the nominations has tightened recently for both parties, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.
Clinton and Sanders are tied among Democrats, with each drawing about 47 percent support in the national poll. At the beginning of the year, Clinton led Sanders by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.
Among Republicans, Trump leads with 44 percent support, compared with 33 percent for Cruz and 16 percent for Kasich.
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