Clinton, Trump romp in NY while Sanders, Cruz and Kasich go forward undaunted

AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist

¡SPECIAL NEW YORK PRIMARY EDITION!

CLINTON AND TRUMP WIN OVERWHELMING VICTORIES IN NY PRIMARIES

Sanders, Cruz and Kasich vow to carry on as if “nothing happened”

  

Former secretary of state and New York senator Hillary Clinton and New York businessman and bankruptcy specialist Donald J. Trump won overwhelming victories in their respective Democratic and Republican primaries in New York State.

Mrs. Clinton garnered 48% of the Democratic vote, beating her opponent, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, by a whopping 16 percentage points, a bigger margin of victory than any of the pre-voting polls predicted.

Mr. Trump won 60% of the votes on the Republican side, a massive victory over Ohio governor John Kasich, who came in second with 25% and Texas senator Ted Cruz, who ended the night a distant third with only 15% of voters casting their ballots for him.

In this ¡SPECIAL NEW YORK PRIMARY EDITION! Around The Block will report on the reactions of the campaigns and their plans going forward as a result of these big wins for Clinton and Trump.

Democratic

Secretary Clinton, in her victory speech, reached out to Bernie Sanders supporters, saying, “To all the people who supported Senator Sanders, I believe there is much more that unites us than divides us,” while clearly indicating that she believed the competition with the senator was nearing the end.

"The race for the nomination is in the home stretch, and victory is in sight," Clinton said to boisterous applause. "I want to say to all of my supporters ... you have carried us every step of the way, with passion and determination that some critics tried to dismiss. Because of you, this campaign is the only one, Democrat or Republican, [which has] won more than 10 million votes."

Not so fast, Sanders supporters said.

Sanders surrogate and former Ohio state senator Nina Turner said, “Nothing has changed,” despite the double-digit loss and the fact that Sanders would have to win 59% of the pledged delegates going forward to take the lead in pledged delegates.

Senator Sanders himself said, “We have a clear path to the nomination,” without explaining exactly what that clear path is.

And Sanders campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, in an astonishing interview with MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, said that even if Sanders was behind in both the popular vote and the pledged delegate count at the end of primary season, they will still attempt to “flip” the 95% of the “super delegates” currently backing Clinton to the Sanders side “at this point.”

While Sanders and Weaver have continually railed about the corrupt electoral process, including the fact that super delegates do not reflect the will of the people, a Sanders spokesperson said, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, "Yes it is correct that Senator Sanders feels that the process is corrupt but, and this is an important but, we are willing to embrace that process when the will of the people does not favor our cause."

Republican

In a victory speech in the lobby of Trump Tower, Donald Trump said Cruz was "just about mathematically eliminated."

"We don't have much of a race anymore," Trump boomed. "We're going to go into the convention I think as the winner."

In a possible signal that Trump, after his “yuuuge” New York victory, might be edging closer to becoming more “presidential,” he continued to slam his opponent but referred to him as “Senator Cruz” rather than his more typical and favorite nickname: “Lyin’ Ted.”

Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson, when asked whether Mr. Trump will stop calling the senator “Lyin’ Ted” going forward, said, “Only time will tell.”

Actually, time was very short since at a campaign rally in Indianapolis less than 12 hours after Pierson's comments, Trump said "In the case of Lyin' Ted Cruz. Lyin' Ted. Lies. Ooh, he lies. You know Ted. He brings the Bible, holds it high, puts it down, lies," going on to say, "And, you know, the evangelicals, they've been supporting Donald Trump. It's been great."

For his part, Cruz, who left the New York primary without winning a single delegate, preemptively shrugged off his New York defeat and kicked off his campaign for Pennsylvania with a speech in Philadelphia where he said that he’ll take Pennsylvania’s delegates next week, despite the fact that his campaign does not anticipate beating Trump in the popular vote in the state where polls showing him losing to Trump by about 20 percentage points.

Cruz’s strategy in Pennsylvania, in a classic display of small “d” democracy, is to lose the popular vote but to woo the “unbound” delegates, representing more than 75% of the total Pennsylvania delegates, to his side.

Those 54 unbound delegates will be able to vote for whichever candidate they desire at the national convention in Cleveland regardless of the popular vote. And the Cruz campaign says it recruited specific individuals this winter to run as delegates after they pledged to vote for Cruz on the convention floor. The Cruz calculation is that this will give them the majority of the delegates no matter what happens. 

Or, as Trump says, will allow them to corruptly steal those delegates.

But perhaps the biggest winner in New York on Tuesday was Ohio governor John Kasich, who picked up a whopping three delegates out of the 95 up for grabs.

Governor Kasich, in his victory speech attributed his astonishingly good second-place showing to his virtual non-stop campaigning in New York City.

“Look, I knew when I went to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and ate four hero sandwiches, a bowl of pasta fagioli, a plate of veal parm and four cannolis, I was clearly in tune with New York values,” Kasich said. “And then my lecturing Jewish yeshiva students on the nuances of the Bible and going to the matzo factory where I conflated matzo baking with Christ’s blood, really sealed the deal in this great city and great state I love so dearly."

There is no confirmation to the report that Kasich, as he was leaving the stage after his speech, whispered to one of his aides, "Can I stop saying I love New York now? And, by the way, before you cancel my tefillin laying lesson, please get me some Tums."