Clinton, Trump Win Big in New York Primaries

Billionaire Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won Tuesday’s presidential primaries in the northeastern U.S. state of New York, extending their leads over rivals trying to earn the Republican and Democratic nominations.

With the bulk of the votes counted, Trump had a huge win with about 60 percent compared to 25 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich and 15 percent for Texas Senator Ted Cruz.  Clinton was beating Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders 57 percent to 42 percent.

The candidates are trying to amass a majority of convention delegates in order to clinch their party nominations for the November general election.

Trump is set to earn almost all of New York’s 95 delegates for the Republicans, likely putting him around 835 delegates after Tuesday’s vote.  Cruz is due to remain at 559 delegates, while Kasich will be just below 150.  A Republican needs 1,237 to be nominated, a level Trump may not be able to reach before the party’s July convention.

Trump thanked his supporters, calling it “an amazing week.” He predicted that he will be the nominee at the July Republican Party convention, saying Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated from the race.

Clinton began Tuesday with 1,758 delegates, including the hundreds of so-called super delegates who have pledged to support her.  The win in New York will put her around 1,900 and leave Sanders trailing at about 1,185.  The Democrats have more overall delegates, so a candidate needs 2,383 to clinch a majority.

Meanwhile, New York City officials were demanding answers from the Board of Elections over a number of voting irregularities Tuesday. Among the issues were broken ballot-scanning machines, late-opening polling places, and tens of thousands of voters dropped from voter rolls.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer said the people of New York City had lost confidence in the Board of Elections.

“We intend to find out why the Board of Elections is so consistently disorganized, chaotic and inefficient,” he said.

It was unlikely that Tuesday’s problems would affect the outcome of the primary election.