What Went Down In The New York Primaries

So evidently I’m on a bit of a nationalism kick… but I’m not alone. One of the things that has struck me about the Democratic debates on immigration in particular is the mix of talking about immigrants as human beings vs. talking about the contributions of immigrants to American society as a whole. The distinction between these two approaches can apply to all different policy areas. This combination was on display in Clinton’s victory speech. She appeared to get the strongest reaction from the crowd when she talked about society as a whole – about “lifting each other up, not tearing each other down,” or about other system-level problems. She’s added some individual stories about 9-11 first responders and the school shooting at Sandy Hook. But in most of the speech, she either sounded like a New Dealer, talking about how systemic problems are at odds with who we are as Americans, or like an updated version of that, talking about banning the box or about finding strength in diversity. There’s a persistent, if sometimes subtle, emphasis in her words on national well-being and strength, rather than just the protection of individuals. In the event that Clinton wins the nomination, this may tell us quite a bit about how she would approach big policy questions.

“The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch and victory is in sight,” Clinton said in her victory speech just now, giving a nice little preview of what her general election stump speech might be. In the ultimate diss, Clinton pretty much ignored Sanders, turning her focus to both Trump and Cruz, both of whom, she said, were “ushering a vision of America that’s… dangerous.” She noted that her campaign was “the only one, Democratic or Republican, to win more than 10 million votes,” quoted Bobby Kennedy, her husband, the New York State motto, and harked back to the “progressive tradition” of FDR and Obama in which she was following in the footsteps. She also spent a solid 30 seconds talking about some ice cream that she ate the other day and liked quite a bit — Clinton was in a really, really good mood.

Trump has another opportunity to beat our delegate projections next week in Connecticut, where he could potentially sweep the state’s delegates if he gets more than 50 percent of the vote. Again, it’s a bit hard to account for home-state effects and how local they might be to New York. But Trump’s extremely strong showing on Long Island — he has 72 percent of the vote so far in Suffolk County — bodes well for Connecticut. To a slightly lesser extent, so do his results in Westchester County, where he has 55 percent of the vote. Trump was at 50 percent exactly in the only recent poll of Connecticut.