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What Went Down In The New York Primaries
Clinton is currently holding a 60 percent to 40 percent lead over Sanders, but the gap should close as more votes come in. The reason is that there are still lots of western and upstate areas to report where Sanders is expected to do better. Still, she should win by double digits.
Sanders’s Path To The Nomination Is Steeper Than Ever
The Upshot’s cool model has Sanders eventually winning about 110 delegates in New York, which is well short of the 128 he’d need to keep up with his (increasingly difficult) path to a pledged delegate majority. Here’s what now we calculate as Sanders’s least-implausible path to 2,026 pledged delegates, assuming he earns 110 from New York tonight.
After tonight, Sanders would have to win California by almost 20 points, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey by around 10 points, to eventually claim the majority of pledged delegates. Even though Sanders has made up ground with Clinton over the course of the campaign, results like those would be quite a shock.
| STATE OR TERRITORY | NO. ELECTED DELEGATES | SANDERS’S PATH-TO-2026 PROJECTION | POPULAR VOTE MARGIN NEEDED TO REACH TARGET | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 475 | 280 | Sanders | +18 |
| Pennsylvania | 189 | 103 | Sanders | +9 |
| New Jersey | 126 | 69 | Sanders | +10 |
| Maryland | 95 | 44 | Clinton | +7 |
| Indiana | 83 | 49 | Sanders | +18 |
| Oregon | 61 | 46 | Sanders | +51 |
| Puerto Rico | 60 | 34 | Sanders | +13 |
| Connecticut | 55 | 32 | Sanders | +16 |
| Kentucky | 55 | 34 | Sanders | +24 |
| New Mexico | 34 | 19 | Sanders | +12 |
| West Virginia | 29 | 20 | Sanders | +38 |
| Rhode Island | 24 | 16 | Sanders | +33 |
| Delaware | 21 | 10 | Clinton | +5 |
| Montana | 21 | 16 | Sanders | +52 |
| South Dakota | 20 | 14 | Sanders | +40 |
| D.C. | 20 | 9 | Clinton | +10 |
| North Dakota | 18 | 14 | Sanders | +56 |
| Guam | 7 | 4 | Sanders | +14 |
| Virgin Islands | 7 | 4 | Sanders | +14 |
Why was this primary-night speech different from all other primary-night speeches for Trump? Well, for one thing it was pretty short on invective.
This is not to say that Trump wasn’t Trump — he walked to the podium to strains of Sinatra’s “New York New York,” and proceeded to dismantle his opponents, but not in the rambling manner we’ve seen before. Tonight, his words were, as they say in the business that Trump claims to disdain (politics), “on message.”
“Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated,” he said.
“We’ve won close to 300 more delegates than Senator Cruz.”
“It’s really nice to win the delegates with the votes. It’s really nice.”
“It’s a crooked system, the system is rigged.”
Trump’s team has been on a hiring spree of late, adding seasoned political operatives. It seems abundantly clear that since the campaign has been losing what you might think of as the “sub primary” — the hunt for second-ballot delegate allies if no candidate clinches the nomination with 1,237 votes on the first ballot in Cleveland — they are focusing on pointing out how unfair the Republican nominating process is. While he continues to win big with voters, Trump’s loss of delegates is a big problem — he’s losing second-ballot delegates to Cruz left and right, which could kill his candidacy in the increasing likelihood of a brokered convention.
Trump rather surprisingly expressed sympathy for Bernie Sanders in his speech.
“I am no fan of Bernie, but you watch him win, win, win,” Trump said, seeming to indicate that both men are victims of their respective party nominating systems.