Trump, Clinton claim victory in New York primaries

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump cast further doubts on the viability of their competitors Tuesday by handily winning primaries in New York state.

Trump is projected to win more than 50 percent of the Republican vote and, if he does, will take the bulk of the state’s 95 delegates, dealing major blows to Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“We don’t have much of a race anymore,” the real estate mogul said during a victory speech at Trump Tower. “Sen. Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated, and we’ve won another state.”

Trump entered the New York primary with a commanding delegate lead. He had 756 pledged delegates to Cruz’s 559 and Kasich’s 144.
Republican candidates need 1,237 delegates to clinch the nomination.

For Clinton, the New York victory is her first victory against Sen. Bernie Sanders since winning Arizona on March 22. She lost the last seven races to Sanders, giving the self-proclaimed democratic socialist much needed momentum.

But that may have come to a head with Clinton’s New York win.

Sanders desperately needed to win the state by a significant margin in order to maintain the viability of his campaign.

“You’ve proven there’s no place like home,” Clinton said, striking a triumphant tone in the state that she represented in the Senate before becoming America’s top diplomat. “The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch and victory is in sight.”

She took aim at Sanders, whom she has consistently charged with not having realistic proposals to address the problems he champions, saying, “it’s not enough to diagnose problems, you have to explain how you’d actually solve the problems.”

For Democrats, 247 delegates are at stake in New York and the party awards delegates proportionally based on final results.

Clinton has 1,758 delegates compared to Sanders’ 1,076.

Still, Tuesday’s vote was marred by irregularities. The New York City Board of Elections stripped more than 125,000 Democratic voters of their eligibility.

“It is absurd that in Brooklyn, New York -- where I was born, actually -- tens of thousands of people as I understand it, have been purged from the voting rolls,” Sanders said at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania where voters will next take to the polls April 26.

While Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Rhode Island will also hold contests on that day, Pennsylvania is the big prize with 210 Democratic delegates at stake and 71 for Republicans.