Donald Trump declared himself the “presumptive” Republican presidential nominee on Tuesday night after sweeping the primaries in five Northeastern States, even as Hillary Clinton tightened her grip on the Democratic nomination, winning four States and yielding just one to her rival, Senator Bernie Sanders.
“It’s over. As far as I’m concerned it’s over,” the New York billionaire proclaimed in a victory speech at his much-touted Trump Tower in Manhattan, adding: “I consider myself the presumptive nominee.”
In line with his surge of confidence over clinching the nomination, Trump appeared to already pivot to a general election clash by firing his first salvos at Clinton, with the latter taking potshots at him likewise.
Calling her “Crooked Hillary”, Trump claimed that if she had not been a woman, she wouldn’t get even 5 per cent of the votes. And Clinton said why she would not shy away from playing the woman card. “If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman’s card, then deal me in,” she said.
Although it could take him several more of the remaining 10 primaries to get to the magic figure of 1,237 delegates and win the nomination, Trump did deliver a stinging blow to his two rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, who have teamed up in a belated bid to halt him in his tracks by consolidating the anti—Trump votes.
In Tuesday’s primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware, Trump won by a landslide, bagging as many as 109 delegates with Cruz winning just three and Kasich getting 5. More importantly, Trump can hope to get a majority of Pennsylvania’s 54 “unbound” delegates at the Republican convention in July since he has won every Congressional district.
Overall, Trump now has 954 delegates as against Cruz’s 562 and Kasich’s 153. It is mathematically impossible for Cruz and Kasich to win enough delegates in the remaining contests. Their “game plan” is really to prevent an outright Trump win so that the nomination issue is settled by a “contested convention” in which both Cruz and Kasich believe things can be swung in their favour.
On the Democratic side, Clinton won four of the five States, while Sanders picked up Rhode Island. Clinton bagged 204 delegates against Sanders’ 146. Overall, Clinton is happily placed, with an aggregate of 2,151 delegates against Sanders’ 1338. She needs 2,383 delegates to clinch the nomination. It’s an easy path for her, since 1,276 delegates are still be decided in the ensuing contests.
Sanders, however, has no intention of quitting the race at this point. In an email to his supporters, he said: “I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victories tonight, and I look forward to issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests to come.”
Trump, for all his grand sweep on Tuesday, still faces a relatively narrow path to nomination in the remaining races, notably next Tuesday’s Indiana primary, where he faces a close contest with Cruz.
In his victory speech, Trump was dismissive of the remaining challenge from Cruz and Kasich. Instead, he made Clinton his target, asserting: “She will not be a good president. She does not have the strength or the stamina to deal with China or other things.”
“Hillary will be horrible, absolutely horrible, on economic development. She knows nothing about jobs, apart from jobs for herself,” he remarked, in utter disregard of the purported advice he has got from his newly-installed top campaign aide Paul Manafort, counselling him to tone down his aggressive campaign style and be more “presidential”. At one point, Trump called her “a flawed candidate and she’s going to be easy to beat”.
Clinton, in her own victory speech, attacked Trump obliquely as she talked of building “an America where we lift each other up instead of tearing each other down”. Rubbishing his extreme caricature of the state of affairs in America, she commented: “Despite what other candidates say, we believe in the goodness of our people and the greatness of our nation.”