Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton notched important wins in their respective presidential primaries in their home state of New York on Tuesday night, helping both in their efforts to clinch their party's White House nomination.
In the Republican race, the billionaire real estate mogul sealed a massive victory over his two remaining rivals, sweeping at least 89 of the 95 delegates up for grabs.
The Associated Press reports:
Donald Trump is now the only Republican candidate with any chance of clinching the nomination before the convention. There aren't enough delegates left in future contests for either Cruz or Kasich to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the GOP nomination. Their only hope is to block Trump and force a contested convention.
"We're going to get a lot more delegates than anyone projected in their wildest imagination," Trump boasted, entering his victory party at his own Trump Tower building to the strains of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York."
Trump had barnstormed the Empire State boasting of his "New York values" that his chief rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, had found himself in hot water for mocking earlier in the campaign. Cruz won't get any delegates from New York, finishing third behind Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
By topping 50 percent in the state, Trump will get 14 statewide delegates. Eighty-one of the remaining 95 delegates up for grabs are awarded by congressional district.
Trump won most of New York's 27 districts; three delegates were at stake in each. Kasich will get at least three delegates in districts where he had strong finishes: the Upper East Side and Lower Manhattan/Wall Street areas of New York City, along with Albany and Syracuse.
Kasich actually beat Trump in New York County (Manhattan) and the one congressional district where he defeated Trump was the 12th — which is home to Trump Tower.
Still, Trump's decisive victory in New York state is a major setback for the #NeverTrump movement hoping to slow the controversial Republican's march to the nomination. And while Cruz has been successful in notching delegate victories in recent weeks at GOP conventions in Wyoming, Colorado and North Dakota, states on the calendar next week in the Northeast don't look promising for the Texas senator.
Trump, for his part, has made recent moves to revamp his campaign operation, which has left delegates on the table at those same state conventions that Cruz has been able to maneuver to his advantage. And his election night speech too had a more subdued feel than some of his more boisterous victory laps of the past, even referring to his bitter rival as "Sen. Cruz" instead of the usual snide moniker of "Lyin' Ted."
On the Democratic side, the nearly 16-point win for the former New York senator over rival Bernie Sanders in Clinton's adopted home state is an important one for her, too. Clinton hadn't had a victory since Arizona almost a month ago.
"Today you proved once again, there is no place like home," Clinton told her crowd of roaring supporters at a midtown Manhattan hotel, where she entered to Jay Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind." "This one's personal."
Sanders, a Brooklyn native, needed to win with 57 percent of the vote to begin to cut into her lead. His wins over the past month in smaller, less delegate-rich states have not been enough to help the Vermont senator catch Clinton in the Democratic delegate race, which she led by 244 pledged delegates going into Tuesday night.
Clinton will rack up most of the 247 pledged delegates up for grabs, making her path to the nomination that much clearer. Now, Sanders needs about 60 percent of the remaining delegates to overtake Clinton in the pledged delegate count.
"The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch and victory is in sight," Clinton said at her victory party.
Her win was largely due to very strong finishes in New York City and its suburbs. Sanders won an overwhelming majority of counties in the state, but Clinton was strong in the Big Apple, along with the major cities and population centers of Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.
According to exit polling, Clinton and Sanders split the 59 percent of white voters that made up the New York Democratic electorate, but Clinton won non-white voters by 36 points. Clinton won both black, white and Latino women voters by large margins, while Sanders carried the quarter of white men who comprised the New York primary vote.
Even though the primary was closed — only registered Democrats and Republicans could vote — the 14 percent of Democratic respondents in exit polls who considered themselves more of an independent split for Sanders by 44 points and he won self-described "very liberal" voters by 12 points.
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