By the time the New York primaries took place on Tuesday, the only doubt on the Republican side of the race was in how decisively Donald Trump would win in his home state. The answer, when all the votes were counted, was very decisively. In the biggest win for Trump or any of the other Republican presidential candidates this year, the real estate mogul defeated rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich in a major landslide. With 60% of the total vote, Trump is expected to walk away from New York with at least 89 of the state’s 95 delegates.
“We don’t have much of a race anymore,” Trump said in his victory speech at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.”
For once in his life, Trump actually understated his position. With his disastrous third-place finish in New York, Cruz is not “just about” eliminated – all reasonable pathways to 1,237 are gone. That doesn’t mean that Cruz can’t or won’t be the Republican nominee, of course; if Trump himself can’t manage to get to the magic delegate number, it will all be up for grabs at the RNC convention in July.
But for a candidate who has repeatedly said that the only way to defeat Trump is to do it at the ballot box, Tuesday night’s results cannot be cause for celebration in the Cruz camp. Cruz and Kasich – who finished second in NY with 25% of the vote – had low expectations in the Empire State, both of them having already moved on to Pennsylvania by Tuesday. Even so, they sounded optimistic moving forward.
“It is time for us to get up, shake it off and be who we were destined to be,” Cruz said Tuesday.
The big New York victory was a comeback of sorts for the frontrunner. When the network projections came in at poll closing, it was the first infusion of good news for the Trump campaign in a couple of rough weeks. Starting with the arrest of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump spent much of the past month weathering one setback after another. The win in New York may be the rocket fuel Trump needs to clinch the nomination and go into Cleveland the undisputed leader of the GOP.
Alas, it’s not over yet. Neither Cruz nor Kasich are expected to drop out before the convention, and they are now both in the same frame of mind – with no chance of an outright win, they’re looking to keep Trump from locking it up. And in a primary season where predictions have proven useless, anything can happen between now and July.
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