Reuters
Donald Trump didn’t have to shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue to win New York. He and Hillary Clinton simply had to show up to win their respective primaries in the state.
Trump's victory in the Republican primary was called by most outlets almost immediately after polls closed, and Clinton's Democratic win was secured under an hour later.
Trump, who has seen his campaign undergo internal turmoil in recent weeks—with senior staffers let go and reassigned—bounced back to win his home state by what will likely be a substantial multi-digit margin. The victory came as expected, with most pre-primary polls showing a 30-point lead against his closest opponent. Interestingly, a majority of Trump’s supporters in the state said they believe illegal immigrants should get a chance to apply for citizenship—despite the candidate's staunchly anti-immigrant positions.
The Republican front-runner easily cleared 50 percent of the statewide vote, meaning he has secured all 14 of the party's at-large delegates. And with victories in most of the state's districts, he could walk away with a large majority of New York's 95 available delegates.
Shortly after his victory, The Donald took the state at his Trump Tower headquarters in Manhattan and delivered a brief speech, which perhaps most notably contained no referneces to Ted Cruz as "Lyin' Ted," suggesting he has been coached to moderate his rhetoric by new campaign chief Paul Manafort.
“Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated,” Trump boasted. “I guess we’re close to 70%, and we’re gonna end at a very high level, and get a lot more delegates than anybody projected, even in their wildest dreams.”
Meanwhile, Clinton waltzed to a victory in her adopted home state. Despite the fact that Sanders won the last seven of eight contests—including the most recent in Wisconsin—Clinton added to her delegate haul with a double-digit Empire State win.
Sanders' loss—while unsurprising considering early polling data—comes as a blow to the democratic socialist, who boldly declared before the vote that he will come away with the state win. The Brooklyn-born senator campaigned vigorously in the state and drew massive crowds to his events, seemingly positioning himself to chip away at her substantial polling lead. Losing New York also contradicts the senator's previous dismissal of primary losses as being simply among the more conservative-leaning southern states.
"The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch and victory is in sight," Clinton told jubilant supporters during her victory speech. Politely suggesting Sanders has been all-but-mathematically eliminated from the race, she extended an olive branch of sorts: "To all the supporters of Senator Sanders: I believe there is much more that unites us than divides us."
The New York primaries were plagued by numerous complaints of voting irregularities, broken machines, and clerical errors. Sanders was already poised for the dip in the state because many voters pledged to support him had failed to register as a Democrat by last October, effectively shutting them out of the state's closed primary.