It’s no real surprise that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have both secured victory in New York overnight and the only real question was what margin they would win by. With most of the votes now counted, it looks to have been convincing in both cases: Trump got more than 60 per cent of the vote whilst Hillary Clinton got around 58 per cent. Primaries like these are the kind that both Trump and Clinton would wish could be replicated over the whole of America. The sense of belonging needed to get voters on side was there automatically for Trump in his home state and also for Hillary as New York’s former senator. Neither Ted Cruz nor Bernie Sanders really stood a chance but that didn’t stop the two winners from talking up the significance of their victories. Donald Trump told his supporters at Trump Tower (where else?) as Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York’ belted out in the background that:
‘We don’t have much of a race anymore, Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated. We’re really, really rocking’.
He’s tried to rule out Cruz before in the race by playing down the number of delegates his rival has secured. Tump is right in one sense in that it will be very difficult for Cruz to now catch him. But the Texas senator has got his eye instead on a contested convention in which he wins enough votes to ensure Trump doesn’t win outright. Trump’s strategy in ruling out Cruz is now part of a broader swipe at the Republican establishment and each time he talks about the race being over he’s doing his best to pile pressure on his party to bring them into line.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s victory handed her a much-needed confidence boost even if it was already almost certain before anyone cast a vote. Clearly boosted by her win, she said:
‘Today you prove once again, there’s no place like home. The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch and victory is in sight’.
Hillary is now just 490 delegates short of the 2383 that she needs to secure victory in the Democratic race. And with Sanders trailing on 1180 delegates to Clinton’s 1893, it seems almost certain that Hillary will be the Democratic candidate. She all but admitted that in her speech in which she told Bernie Sanders’ supporters that ‘there is much more that unites us than divides us’. Clinton’s eyes are now focused on the White House and her rhetoric has shifted to being fixed on putting the Democrat party back together again under her candidacy.
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