{"id":26783,"date":"2016-04-21T08:01:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T15:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/trump-rails-against-delegate-system-after-big-new-york-win\/"},"modified":"2016-04-21T08:01:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T15:01:48","slug":"trump-rails-against-delegate-system-after-big-new-york-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/trump-rails-against-delegate-system-after-big-new-york-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump rails against delegate system after big New York win"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong> \u2014 Hillary Clinton, the nearly unstoppable Democrat, and Republican front-runner Donald Trump accelerated Wednesday toward Northeast primaries on an increasingly direct path to presidential nominations after trouncing party challengers in New York.<\/p>\n

Clinton, now 81 percent of the way toward clinching the Democratic nomination that eluded her eight years ago, can lose every remaining contest and still prevail. Her sweeping victory in the New York primary called into question the durability of Bernie Sanders\u2019 rival campaign and left him with severely limited options for overtaking her.<\/p>\n

While Trump strengthened his hand, he is still far from in the clear.<\/p>\n

Trump is focused heavily on clinching the Republican nomination through voters\u2019 balloting in state primaries, thus avoiding a contested national convention in Cleveland in July. The businessman\u2019s win in his home state keeps him on a path to securing the 1,237 delegates he needs, though he\u2019ll have to perform well in the round of primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware on Tuesday and in California\u2019s huge contest on June 7.<\/p>\n

His chief rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has no mathematical path to getting the nomination through primary voting. But he sees a window to snatch the nomination from Trump at the convention, and his campaign is working feverishly to line up delegates who would support him if Trump fails to prevail on a first ballot.<\/p>\n

The side-by-side GOP efforts at this late stage \u2014 with Trump amassing primary victories while Cruz digs for the support of delegates who could settle the nomination \u2014 are unprecedented in recent presidential campaigns and add to the deeply uncertain nature of the race.<\/p>\n

Trump basked in the glow of his victory at a rally in Indianapolis, where he drew several thousand people to a packed building at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. He railed against the Republican nominating system, pointing to Louisiana, where he was outmaneuvered by Cruz in the fight for delegates, and Pennsylvania, where the statewide winner gets 17 delegates outright and the rest \u201care up for grabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can take the delegates, they can put \u2018em in airplanes and fly \u2018em to resorts, they can have dinners with them, they can put them in hotels. Essentially what they\u2019re saying is they can buy the election,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Indiana votes on May 3.<\/p>\n

Cruz campaigned in Hershey, Pennsylvania, trying to brush off his Tuesday shellacking in New York where he failed to pick up a single delegate. With trademark sarcasm, he played down Trump\u2019s win, saying the mogul hoped to convince people that \u201cPennsylvania is a suburb of Manhattan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald, with a characteristic display of humility, declared this race is over,\u201d Cruz said. \u201cManhattan has spoken. And if the rest of the voters would quietly go home now and allow him to give the general election to Hillary, all would be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Cruz conceded to reporters covering the Republican National Committee\u2019s spring meeting in Florida that he cannot win the GOP nomination before the convention but insisted Trump couldn\u2019t either. He said it was clear \u201cthat we are headed to a contested convention.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the messy nomination fight will be a focus of the meeting, party leaders are painfully aware that any rule changes could fuel Trump\u2019s charges of an unfair system. Party chairman Reince Priebus has discouraged such action this week.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s win in New York, a state she represented in the Senate for eight years, halted Sanders\u2019 recent string of victories and put her in a stronger position heading into the next contests. She could lose them all and still win the nomination \u2014 if she did well enough to win some delegates.<\/p>\n

Sen. Sanders\u2019 advisers offered no signs of giving up before the Democrats\u2019 Philadelphia convention.<\/p>\n

Sanders decamped to his home in Vermont but planned to campaign in Pennsylvania on Thursday and Friday, Clinton was holding events in the Philadelphia area, joining former Attorney General Eric Holder to outline her plans to curb gun violence.<\/p>\n

On the Republican side, many party leaders are torn. Trump is seen by some as a threat to the GOP\u2019s very existence. Others fear the party would implode anyway if Cruz were to overtake Trump through a bitter and complicated delegate struggle in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the only other Republican left in the race, picked up at least three New York delegates but still has only one primary win \u2014 his home state.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s campaign has struggled to keep up with Cruz in working the delegate system, deepening the urgency around his team\u2019s efforts to clinch the nomination before the July convention.<\/p>\n

Mindful of a need to avoid errors like the ones that plagued his campaign in recent weeks, Trump has hired a more professional political staff, been more careful on social media and infused his victory remarks in New York with flashes of policy proposals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Hillary Clinton, the nearly unstoppable Democrat, and Republican front-runner Donald Trump accelerated Wednesday toward Northeast primaries on an increasingly direct path to presidential nominations after trouncing party challengers in New York. Clinton, now 81 percent of the way toward clinching the Democratic nomination that eluded her eight years ago, can lose every remaining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-26783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26783"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=26783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}