Photo via Newsday
This past Tuesday night the New York State primary was held for both Republicans and Democrats where Donald Trump and Hillary both defended their leads in commanding fashion.
The former Secretary of State took approximately 58 percent of the vote, while Trump obliterated John Kasich and Ted Cruz, tallying around 61 percent of the vote. For Trump, it moves the narrative back towards him winning the nomination after news of Ted Cruz’s delegate courting and overall strategy was leaving Trump in the dust.
Tuesday night however, Trump is expected to pick up at least 90 of the available delegates while Cruz will get zero, per The New York Times. For Clinton it also shifts the narrative after Sanders had won eight of the past nine primary contests and was building momentum after sizably shrinking a 48 point deficit in New York State from just a few months ago.
Although he spent $5.6 million dollars on television ads in the empire state compared to Clinton’s $2.8 million, Sanders was unable to overcome the deficit and flew back to Vermont late Tuesday night for what he said was a day of rest and recovery. He will need to pivot immediately to Pennsylvania, the next Democratic primary voting state. Clinton sounded like a woman looking toward the general election in her Tuesday victory speech, saying that the nomination was “in sight,” per The Huffington Post.
As the New Republic points out, Trump’s New York domination makes it extremely difficult for Republicans to even consider blocking him from the nomination at the convention in Cleveland. They said it would seem “underhanded” and Trump has warned of “great turmoil” if he is denied the nomination.
Trump had looked quite vulnerable to a contested convention before New York after Cruz was able to round up delegates in Colorado and other states with non-traditional primaries. Trump and his campaign complained of fraud, underhanded dealings and even “Gestapo Tactics” that Cruz used to se-cure delegates, according to Politico. However a simpler primary seems to favor the Trump campaign, a campaign that focuses on momentum, energy and speeches rather than organization prowess.
In an odd turn, Trump was remarkably reserved (by his own standards) after winning the New York primary. As the New York Times points out, he never spoke about Hillary Clinton and refrained from using his moniker for Ted Cruz, “Lyin’ Ted,” instead referring to him as Senator Cruz.
In what is perhaps a subtle signal of his pivot toward the general election, Trump spoke more on the future of the country with regards to manufacturing and jobs instead of jabbing his downtrodden opponents.
On the Democratic side, Sanders again struggled with minority voters. He tied Clinton in the white voter category in New York but suffered with black voters, a common problem of his campaign and the reason that, as Senator Sanders put it, his campaign “got murdered” in the southern primaries. He pinned the loss on the South being a conservative mecca and pointed to his wins in other states, however the makeup of southern Democratic Primaries, where large swaths of the voting population are black, suggests otherwise.
Senator Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said that if it were necessary that they will take the nomination fight all the way to the floor of the Democratic Convention. This was matched by equal fervor on the Clinton side, where a Clinton aide told Politico, “we kicked his (expletive) tonight. I hope this convinces Bernie to tone it down.”
Although many see a Republican contested convention as a real possibility no one thought a Democratic one was possible at the outset of the primary season. Now it looks like the bitterness between Clinton and Sanders coupled with Sanders’ donation and grassroots organizing are in it all the way to the Convention