Front-runners win New York
Trump, Clinton score big in decisive primary
BILLIONAIRE Donald Trump and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton won sweeping victories in the New York primary on Tuesday, bolstering their bids to secure the Republican and Democratic nominations for the White House.
It was the most decisive New York primary in decades and leaves self-styled democratic socialist Bernie Sanders with a tough decision on how to proceed as Clinton extends her overwhelming lead over the Vermont senator.
US networks called the Republican race for Trump seconds after the polls closed, signalling a crushing victory that is likely to alarm his opponents desperately hoping to block his path to the nomination with a contested party convention in July.
Both Clinton and Trump will now look to replicate their wins in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, which hold primaries on Tuesday, as they edge closer towards a general election in November.
“To the people who know me the best -- the people of New York -- when they give us this kind of a vote, it’s just incredible,” a delighted Trump, flanked by his family, told a Manhattan victory party.
Trump, whose campaign has appalled the Republican establishment, won 60.5% of the vote to 14.5% for his evangelical rival Ted Cruz and 25.1% for Ohio governor John Kasich, with most of the votes counted, CNN said.
“Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated,” the 69-year-old declared to cheers and applause from supporters at Trump Tower.
The Texas senator, who has projected himself as the only Republican capable of beating Trump, is widely disliked across the state for earlier insulting New York’s supposedly non-conservative values.
CNN predicted that Trump would take at least 89 of the 95 Republican delegates up for grabs in New York.
Clinton relished the victory in her adopted home state to stall momentum generated by Sanders, who won seven of the eight previous contests.
“Thank you New York,” she said to chants of “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary” from jubilant supporters in a Manhattan hotel, where she walked on stage with her husband, former American president Bill Clinton, and heavily pregnant daughter Chelsea.
The candidate, 68, looking to make history as the first woman president of the US, said: “Today you proved once again there’s no place like home.”
The former first lady and New York senator won 57.9% of the vote to 42.1% for Sanders, CNN said.
Clinton extended an olive branch to supporters of Sanders, who has galvanised millions of young voters with his calls for healthcare as a right, free college education and campaign finance reform.
“I believe there’s much more that unites us than divides us,” she said.
While New York is largely Democrat, Republicans in rural areas and fallen manufacturing cities upstate warmed to Trump’s populist message, despite his insults to women, Mexicans and Muslims.
The three main candidates all claimed New York as 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.
Sanders, 74, had hoped for a much closer margin to keep alive his White House dreams but showed no signs of stepping aside.
“We lost tonight. There are five primaries next week. We think we’re going to do well,” he told reporters.
Clinton now leads with 1 930 delegates compared with 1 223 for Sanders, according to a CNN tally -- putting her even more firmly on course to clinch the 2 383 needed to secure the party’s presidential nomination.
New York’s 247 Democratic delegates and 44 superdelegates are the party’s secondlargest state haul, eclipsed only by California.
But there were deep frustrations over New York’s strict rules governing the vote, while voters and rights monitors reported numerous errors on voting lists in Brooklyn.
