Clinton, Trump slated for victory in New York
NEW York began voting yesterday in a high-stakes presidential primary tipped to hand Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump victories in the race to clinch the Democratic and Republican tickets to the White House.
The former secretary of state, first lady and New York senator leads the polls by double digits over her Brooklyn-born challenger, Bernie Sanders, even if nationwide surveys put them neck-andneck.
Trump, the brash Manhattan billionaire whose controversial campaign has appalled the Republican establishment, is streets ahead of his evangelical rival Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
The 69-year-old tycoon is banking on a big home-state victory in his quest to sew up the nomination before Republican grandees can deny him the ticket and anoint another candidate at the party convention in July.
The polls opened at 6am and were due to close at 9pm (3am today SA time) when Clinton and Trump had scheduled what they hoped would be victory parties in Manhattan.
To the disadvantage of Vermont senator Sanders, only New York’s 5.8 million registered Democrats and 2.7 million registered Republicans were eligible to vote. Independents could not participate.
With both races for the White House nomination so competitive, it was the most consequential New York primary in decades in the country’s fourth-largest state that is home to an incredibly diverse electorate.
Uniquely, three of the candidates lay claim to calling New York home: Trump, who has never lived anywhere else, Clinton, who was twice elected the state’s US senator, and Sanders, who was raised in Brooklyn.
For Clinton, a big victory in the state – which elected her over Barack Obama in 2008 – would stall the momentum generated by her self-styled Democratic socialist rival, who has won seven out of the last eight state votes.
Clinton holds 1 790 delegates compared with 1 113 for Sanders, putting her on course to scoop the 2 383 needed to secure the party’s ticket.
Only California has more than the 247 Democratic delegates and 44 super-delegates up for grabs in New York.
Sanders, 74, who has galvanised a youth movement with his call for healthcare as a right, free college education and campaign finance reform, needs a win to keep alive his presidential hopes.
On the Republican side, Trump hoped winning the majority of New York’s 95 Republican delegates could lessen his chances of facing a contested nomination at the party convention in Cleveland.
Republicans in rural areas and fallen manufacturing cities have warmed to his populist message despite a backlash among party elites fearful his insults of women, Mexicans and Muslims make him unelectable.
Trump leads his home-state polls over Kasich and Cruz at 53.1%, according to RealClearPolitics.
