Trump routs rivals in Northeast; Clinton carries four states

In a front-runner's rout, Republican Donald Trump roared to victory Tuesday in five contests across the Northeast and confidently declared himself the GOP's "presumptive nominee." Hillary Clinton was dominant in four Democratic races and now is 90 percent of the way to the number needed to claim her own nomination.
Trump's and Clinton's wins propelled them ever closer to a general election showdown. Still, Sanders and Republicans Ted Cruz and John Kasich, vowed to keep running, even as opportunities to topple the leaders dwindle.
Trump still must negotiate a narrow path to keep from falling short of the delegates needed to claim the nomination before the Republican National Convention in July. Cruz and Kasich are working toward that result, which would leave Trump open to a floor fight in which delegates could turn to someone else.

Trump was having none of that. "It's over. As far as I'm concerned it's over," he declared at his victory rally in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York.
With Clinton's four victories — she ceded only Connecticut to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — she now has 90 percent of the delegates she needs to become the first woman nominated by a major party. Clinton kept her focus firmly on the general election as she spoke to supporters Tuesday night, urging Sanders' loyal supporters to help her unify the Democratic Party and reaching out to GOP voters who may be unhappy with their party's options.
"If you are a Democrat, an independent or a thoughtful Republican, you know that their approach is not going to build an America where we increase opportunity or decrease inequality," Clinton said of the GOP candidates. She spoke in Philadelphia, where Democrats will gather in July for their nominating convention.
Sanders, in an interview with The Associated Press, conceded that he has a "very narrow path and we're going to have to win some big victories."
Trump's victories in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island padded his delegate totals, yet the Republican contest remains chaotic. The businessman is the only candidate left in the three-person race who could possibly clinch the nomination through the regular voting process, yet he could still fall short of the 1,237 delegates he needs.
Cruz and Kasich are desperately trying to keep Trump from that magic number and push the race to a convention fight. The Texas senator and Ohio governor even took the rare step of announcing plans to coordinate in upcoming contests to try to minimize Trump's delegate totals.
That effort did little to stop Trump from a big showing in the Northeast, where he picked up at least 105 of the 118 delegates up for grabs. Despite his solid win in Pennsylvania, the state's primary system means 54 of the delegates elected by voters will be free agents at the GOP convention, able to vote for the candidate of their choice.
Cruz spent Tuesday in Indiana, which votes next week. Indiana is one of Cruz's last best chances to slow Trump, and Kasich's campaign is pulling out of the state to give him a better opportunity to do so.
"Tonight this campaign moves back to more favorable terrain," Cruz said during an evening rally in Knightstown, Indiana. His event was held at the "Hoosier gym," where some scenes were filmed for the 1986 movie, "Hoosiers," about a small town Indiana basketball team that wins the state championship.
Trump has railed against his rivals' coordination, panning it as a "faulty deal" and has also cast efforts to push the nomination fight to the convention as evidence of a rigged process that favors political insiders.
Yet there's no doubt the GOP is deeply divided by his candidacy. In Pennsylvania, exit polls showed nearly 4 in 10 GOP voters said they would be excited by Trump becoming president, but the prospect of the real estate mogul in the White House scared a quarter of those who cast ballots in the state's Republican primary.
In another potential general election warning sign for Republicans, 6 in 10 GOP voters in Pennsylvania said the Republican campaign has divided the party — a sharp contrast to the 7 in 10 Democratic voters in the state who said the race between Clinton and Sanders has energized their party.
The exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.
Democrats award delegates proportionally, which allowed Clinton to maintain her lead over Sanders even as he rattled off a string of wins in recent contests. According to the AP count, Clinton has 2,089 delegates while Sanders has 1,258.
That count includes delegates won in primaries and caucuses, as well as superdelegates — party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice, regardless of how their state votes.
Sanders has vowed to stay in the race until voting wraps up in June. He continues to raise millions of dollars and attract big crowds, including Tuesday night in West Virginia, where he urged his supporters to recognize that they are "powerful people if you choose to exercise that power."
While Clinton's campaign expects Sanders to stay in the race, her advisers are eager for the Vermont senator to tone down his attacks on the former secretary of state. She's been reminding voters of the 2008 Democratic primary, when she endorsed Barack Obama after a tough campaign and urged her supporters to rally around her former rival.
According to exit polls, less than a fifth of Democratic voters said they would not support Clinton if she gets the nomination. The exit polls were conducted in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Source: AP

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Trump, Clinton win big in NY, push closer to nomination

Front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton swept to resounding victories in Tuesday's New York primary, with Trump bouncing back convincingly from a difficult stretch in his Republican campaign and Clinton pushing tantalizingly close to locking up the Democratic nomination.

"The race for the nomination is in the home stretch, and victory is in sight," Clinton declared to cheering supporters.

Trump captured more than 50 percent of the vote in New York and was headed toward a big delegate haul in his home state, a commanding showing that keeps him on a path to the GOP nomination if he continues to win. He claimed at least 84 of the 95 delegates at stake Tuesday, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich winning at least two and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in danger of getting shut out.

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A confident Trump insisted it was impossible for his rivals to catch him. Indeed, Cruz's poor showing in New York left him without any 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.

"We don't have much of a race anymore," Trump said during a victory rally in the lobby of the Manhattan tower bearing his name. He peppered his brash remarks with more references to the economy and other policy proposals than normal, reflecting the influence of a new team of advisers seeking to professionalize his campaign.

Clinton's triumph padded her delegate lead over rival Bernie Sanders and put her 80 percent of the way to clinching the Democratic nomination that eluded her eight years ago. In a shift toward the general election, she made a direct appeal to Sanders' loyal supporters, telling them she believes "there is more that unites us than divides us."

Exit polls suggested Democrats were ready to rally around whoever the party nominates. Nearly 7 in 10 Sanders supporters in New York said that they would definitely or probably vote for Clinton if she is the party's pick.

Sanders energized young people and liberals in New York, as he has across the country, but it wasn't enough to pull off the upset victory he desperately needed to change the trajectory of the Democratic race. Still, the Vermont senator vowed to keep competing.

"We've got a shot to victory," Sanders said in an interview with The Associated Press. However, his senior adviser Tad Devine said later that the campaign planned to "sit back and assess where we are" after a string of contests next week.

Of the 247 Democratic delegates at stake in New York, Clinton picked up at least 129 while Sanders gained at least 98.

The fight for New York's delegate haul consumed the presidential contenders for two weeks, an eternity in the fast-moving White House race. Candidates blanketed every corner of New York, bidding for votes from Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs to the working class cities and rural enclaves that dot the rest of the state.

The nominating contests will stay centered in the Northeast in the coming days, with Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania all holding contests next week. Sanders spent Tuesday in Pennsylvania, as did Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's closest rival.

Cruz panned Trump's win in New York as little more than "a politician winning his home state," then implored Republicans to unite around his candidacy.

"We must unite the Republican Party because doing so is the first step in uniting all Americans," Cruz said in formal remarks.

Trump needed a strong showing in New York to keep alive his chances of sewing up the GOP nomination before the party's July convention — and to quiet critics who say the long primary season has exposed big deficiencies in his campaign effort.

Having spent months relying on a slim staff, Trump has started hiring more seasoned campaign veterans. He's acknowledged that bringing new people into his orbit may cause some strife, but says the moves were necessary at this stage of the race.

Cruz is trying to stay close enough in the delegate count to push the GOP race to a contested convention. His campaign feels confident that it's mastered the complicated process of lining up individual delegates who could shift their support to the Texas senator after a first round of convention balloting.

Kasich, the only other Republican left in the race, bested Cruz on Tuesday and is refusing to end his campaign despite winning only his home state.

Trump's political strength, though he boasts of drawing new members to the party, has left some Republicans concerned that his nomination could splinter the GOP. Among Republican voters in New York, nearly 6 in 10 said the nominating contest is dividing the party, according to exit polls.

Still, about 7 in 10 New York Republicans said the candidate with the most votes in primary contests should be the Republican presidential nominee

The surveys were conducted by Edison Research for The Associated Press and television networks.

Trump now leads the GOP race with 804 delegates, ahead of Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 144. Securing the GOP nomination requires 1,237.

Among Democrats, Clinton now has 1,887 delegates to Sanders' 1,174. Those totals include both pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses and superdelegates, the party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice regardless of how their state votes. It takes 2,383 to win the Democratic nomination.

Source: AP

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For Clinton, a double-barreled fight against Trump and Sanders in New York

HARRISON, N.Y. — Hillary Clinton’s double-barreled fight for the presidency has arrived in her home state, where she is planning a weeks-long, hyper-local blitz to deal with the challenge of simultaneously competing against two fellow New Yorkers: Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Although New York’s primary is still nearly three weeks away, its 247 delegates are expected to make it a critical contest in determining the Democratic nomination. Both Clinton and Sanders are campaigning heavily in New York this week, marking the beginning of a potentially long slog through the state.
But Clinton also has her sights trained squarely on Trump, issuing a new ad criticizing the Republican front-runner for his proposals to ban Muslims from entering the country and build a wall along the Mexican border — and using scenes of New Yorkers of many backgrounds to make her point.
The Big Apple as backdrop for Clinton’s two-front battle is all the more resonant given that all three candidates have deep New York ties. Trump is from Queens, and his real estate empire is headquartered in Manhattan. Sanders, along with his wife, Jane, grew up in Brooklyn. Clinton, who represented New York for eight years in the Senate, calls Chappaqua, a wealthy suburb of New York City, her primary home.
Clinton faces a somewhat tricky path in competing against both men simultaneously. While the former secretary of state’s campaign is eager to pivot to the November general election, aides are also mindful that she does not appear, particularly to Sanders supporters, as if she believes she has clinched the nomination. “It’s a difficult balance to strike,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist. “She wants to pivot to the general, but she wants to do it without looking presumptuous about the primaries.”
Aides also say, however, that targeting Trump energizes the base and undermines Sanders by sending a signal to rank-and-file Democrats that she is prepared to take on Trump in the general election.
Clinton is bringing her own fighting style to the battle with these two native New Yorkers: Trump, a verbal brawler who has not spared Clinton the personal attacks that have characterized his approach to his rivals, and Sanders, a scrappy politician who is unafraid to level deep policy criticisms her way.
In her new TV ad, Clinton does not name Trump, and she brings a lighthearted touch to the critique. “When some say we can solve America’s problems by building walls, banning people based on their religion and turning against each other,” she says in the ad, “well, this is New York, and we know better.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ad.
Clinton has directly criticized Sanders. In a speech in Harlem on Wednesday, she dinged him for voting with the National Rifle Association, said he is making foreign policy an “afterthought” and called him a “single-issue candidate.”
“My opponent and I share many of the same goals,” Clinton said. “But some of his ideas for how to get there won’t pass. Others just won’t work, because the numbers just don’t add up.”
Mostly, however, Clinton is following the same hyper-local strategy in New York that she deployed in Michigan, where she focused relentlessly on the Flint water crisis; Alabama and Missouri, where she campaigned against voter-identification laws; Arkansas, where she criticized a religious-freedom bill; and Illinois and West Virginia, where anti-union legislation has been in her crosshairs.
In New York, Clinton can go a step further and tout her leadership and accomplishments while in the Senate — a strategy that her aides hope will play well against Sanders and, in particular, political novice Trump.
On Thursday, Clinton campaigned in the Westchester County suburbs, waxing nostalgic about moving nearby in 1999, before launching her Senate career. She also rapped Trump for his controversial remarks suggesting that women who seek illegal abortions should be punished — and took aim at Sanders for saying that the controversy was a distraction from the “serious” issues in the race.
“To me, it is a serious issue and this is a very serious discussion,” she said.
Clinton planned on Friday to be in Syracuse, where she is expected to focus on manufacturing jobs she has taken credit for helping bring to Upstate communities as senator.
Sanders, too, has planned an aggressive campaign in New York to draw contrasts with Clinton, aides said — particularly on issues such as the contributions Clinton and supporting political action committees have received from Wall Street interests, the fossil fuel industry and lobbyists for the gun industry.
Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s campaign manager, said there are a lot of reasons Sanders should be appealing in the Empire State. He said his candidate will have “a pretty packed schedule” and plans to invest heavily in advertising before April 19. A television buy will start “in the very near future,” he said.
“People in New York appreciate authenticity, and they like a real fighter,” Weaver said. “We are 100 percent committed to contesting New York.”
As Sanders attempts to catch Clinton in the race for the nomination, a lot is at stake in New York’s April 19 contest, which offers the largest trove of pledged delegates aside from California between now and the Democratic convention.
The race is a homecoming of sorts for Sanders, who was born and raised in Brooklyn before he launched a political career in Vermont. The Sanders campaign recently opened its statewide headquarters in the borough, minutes from Clinton’s headquarters.
Voters can expect to hear a lot about Sanders’s humble roots in Brooklyn. During a swing through New York in February, he walked the street of his old neighborhood with CBS news anchor Scott Pelley and, seemingly on a whim, decided he would see whether he could get into the old “3/-room, rent-controlled apartment” where he grew up.
It turned out the apartment was vacant and being painted, and the painters let him in.
“God, I can’t believe how small it is,” Sanders said. “When you were a kid, it looked so big.”
Sanders staged a large rally Thursday night at a park in the Bronx, where guests included actress Rosario Dawson, director Spike Lee and Residente, a Puerto Rican performer and founder of the alternative rap group Calle 13. “If we win here in New York, we are going to make it to the White House,” Sanders said at the rally, which drew an estimated 18,500 people, including a large overflow crowd that didn’t get into the rally site.
Weaver argued that the bigger burden is on Clinton to show that she can carry New York by a comfortable margin, given that it is “her adopted home state” and she represented New Yorkers in the Senate for two terms. “We’ve got to do well in New York, obviously, but she has to do really well in New York,” Weaver said.
Weaver said Sanders’s campaign has a plan to catch Clinton in pledged delegates that does not require an outright win in New York. He did not provide details, though aides have acknowledged that he needs to win California and win it by a large margin.
Sanders faces the added challenge that he will not be able to count on independent voters — who have broken for him in previous contests — in the New York primary, which is closed to non-Democrats. However, the state has a potentially untapped progressive bent that resulted in competitive Democratic races at the gubernatorial level in 2014 — something that might benefit Sanders.
“If you look at New York state politics of the last four or five years, there’s been an increasing progressive tilt with regard to elections,” said Phil Singer, a former aide to Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign and a longtime aide of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “Bernie is doing very, very well with liberals and progressives. I don’t think it’s a surprise that it would be a 10-point victory for Hillary as opposed to a 30-point victory for Hillary.”
Clinton has the advantage a long track record in the state, especially on economic issues, her advisers say. “If you look at her record in the Senate, that’s an important part of her story that we haven’t talked about,” said Clinton adviser Karen Finney. “There’s a lot of talk about the ’90s and not a lot of talk about what she did when she actually had a vote.”
Clinton has deployed New York’s political heavyweights, including Schumer and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) to amplify her case to voters — and her attacks on Sanders.
As Clinton and Rangel campaigned at a Harlem bakery Wednesday, Rangel praised Sanders for calling attention to the “immoral and illegal” levels of income inequality in the United States. “Now I need some help as to what else he’s made a priority,” he said. “Bernie Sanders has always been there for social justice, and no one can challenge that. It’s just that Hillary Clinton has done something about it.”
Wagner reported from New York City.



Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-clinton-a-double-barreled-fight-against-trump-and-sanders-in-everybodys-home-state-ny/2016/03/31/1169a47a-f6ba-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html

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