The Latest: Cruz can't win enough delegates pre-convention
By Associated Press
Apr 19, 2016 10:52 PM CDT
Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton celebrate at her New York primary campaign headquarters, Tuesday, April 19, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)   (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on campaign 2016 as voters in New York cast their ballots in the state's primary (all times Eastern Daylight Time):

11:45 P.M.

Donald Trump is now the only Republican candidate with any chance of clinching the nomination before the convention.

Ted Cruz was mathematically eliminated Tuesday after Trump's big win in the New York primary.

Trump won at least 89 of the 95 delegates at stake. John Kasich won at least three and Cruz was in danger of being shut out.

There aren't enough delegates left in future contests for either Cruz or Kasich to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the GOP nomination. Their only hope is to block Trump and force a contested convention.

The AP delegate count:

Trump: 845.

Cruz: 559.

Kasich: 147.

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11:30 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is about 80 percent of the way to clinching the Democratic presidential nomination after her win in New York.

With 247 delegates at stake, Clinton will pick up at least 129. Sanders will win at least 98. Twenty delegates remain to be allocated, pending final vote tallies.

Based on primaries and caucuses to date, Clinton now has 1,418 delegates to Sanders' 1,143.

When including superdelegates, party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton has 1,887. Sanders has 1,174.

It takes 2,383 to win.

Sanders now has an even high bar if he hopes to win the nomination — he needs to get 71 percent of remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates.

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10:35 p.m.

A top adviser to Bernie Sanders says the senator still has a path to the Democratic presidential nomination but will need to perform well in primary contests next week.

Senior adviser Tad Devine spoke in a phone interview after Hillary Clinton defeated Sanders in New York by a convincing margin. He says Sanders "never counted on winning New York — this is her home state."

Devine says there are "still a pretty good number of delegates left. We have to win most of the states. We have to win enough delegates to make up the difference."

Devine says the Sanders campaign will see how it does next week in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut and then "assess where we are."

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10:30 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is all but declaring victory in the Democratic primaries, telling raucous supporters in New York that the race for the nomination "is in the home stretch and victory is in sight."

Clinton is addressing supporters after her convincing win in her home state against Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders. In a nod to her role as a New York senator a decade ago, she tells supporters they helped prove "once again, there's no place like home."

Clinton is reaching out to the supporters of Sanders, telling them she believes "there is much more that unites us than divides us."

The former secretary of state was winning by large margins in New York City's five boroughs, which hold more than half the votes in a Democratic primary.

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10:05 p.m.

Hillary Clinton is solidifying her big delegate lead after a win in New York.

With 247 delegates at stake, Clinton will pick up at least 104 while Bernie Sanders will gain at least 85. Many remain to be allocated, pending final vote tallies.

Based on primaries and caucuses to date, Clinton now has 1,393 delegates to Sanders' 1,130.

When including superdelegates, party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton's lead is even bigger, 1,862 to 1,161.

Before New York's contest, Sanders needed to win 68 percent of remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates to catch Clinton.

That bar is on track to become even higher, heading into a set of contests next week in the Northeast that are expected to favor Clinton.

It takes 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.

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9:55 p.m.

Donald Trump is again signaling that he plans to challenge the Republican National Committee to change delegate selection rules.

Trump says: "Nobody should take delegates and claim victory unless they get those delegates with voters and voting. And that's what's going to happen."

Republican rival Ted Cruz has won fewer contests and has been allotted fewer delegates, but has outmaneuvered Trump in organizing state-by-state.

The strategy has allowed Cruz to scoop up delegates who could support him if the nomination requires multiple ballots at the national convention.

Trump has called the party's delegate selection plan "rigged." The plan has been public for more than a year and official since October.

The Republican National Committee meets in Florida later this week.

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9:50 p.m.

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer has ordered an audit of the city's Board of Elections after reports that some voters were turned away from poll sites during the state's presidential primary.

The agency's executive director dismissed the issues Tuesday, saying few people experienced problems.

The comptroller's concerns were based partly on statistics showing that the number of registered Democrats and Republicans in Brooklyn fell by around 64,000 between Nov. 1 and April 1.

Elections officials said that was part of a routine review to cancel the registrations of people who haven't voted in recent elections and didn't respond to notices asking them to confirm their address.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he supported Stringer's audit.

A state voter hotline received more than 700 complaints by Tuesday afternoon.

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9:47 p.m.

Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic presidential primary in New York, which she represented in the U.S. Senate for eight years.

Clinton beat out rival Bernie Sanders in Tuesday's election, further extending her lead in the delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.

Most Democratic primary voters see Clinton as the best candidate to face Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee in November, and 7 in 10 see her as the most likely eventual Democratic nominee.

Before Tuesday, Clinton led Sanders 1,292 to 1,042 in the delegate count. When including superdelegates, the AP count had Clinton at 1,761 and Sanders at 1,073.

Most of New York's Democratic delegates are awarded on a proportional basis by the outcome in each congressional district. New York has 247 pledged delegates at stake.

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9:40 p.m.

Donald Trump, fresh off a commanding victory in the Republican primary in his home state of New York, is suggesting he may soon have the race in hand.

Trump, speaking Tuesday night in Trump Tower, says Senator Ted Cruz "is just about mathematically eliminated" from clinching the delegates needed to win outright before the national convention.

"We don't have much of a race anymore," says Trump, declaring that his campaign is "really rocking" and he could have the nomination sown up before the party convention in Cleveland.

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9:35 p.m.

Donald Trump is touting that "the people who know me best" gave him a resounding victory in the Republican primary in his home state of New York.

Trump appeared Tuesday night in the lobby of Trump Tower to the strains of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York." He then walked a red carpet with an American flag as a backdrop, the whole scene bathed in red, white and blue lights.

He saluted his family and campaign staff, saying it's "been an incredible night, an incredible week."

The Trump campaign was banking on a significant win in New York after a stumble in Wisconsin earlier this month. The win allows him to stay on a narrow, but real, path to capture the delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination before the party's national convention in Cleveland this summer.

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9:05 p.m.

Cheers broke out in Trump Tower in Manhattan at 9 p.m. Tuesday night as polls closed and news organizations called the New York Republican primary for Donald Trump.

He's expected to speak soon in front of assembled reporters, supporters and staffers, who have gathered in the lobby of Trump's midtown office and residential building.

Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says the campaign's goal is to beat the margins that rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich achieved in their home states.

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9 p.m.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has won the primary in his home state of New York.

Trump was widely expected to beat his rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich in Tuesday's election. The precise allocation of delegates from the state won't be determined until the vote results are calculated by congressional district, but Trump is certain to extend his delegate lead and come closer to the 1,237 delegates required to clinch the party's nomination.

Early results of the exit poll in the state show a large majority of New York Republicans want the next president to be a political outsider.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Trump had amassed 756 delegates, while Cruz had 559 and Kasich had 144.

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8:45 p.m.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to move beyond a crushing defeat in New York, which he is dismissing as merely "a politician winning his home state."

Instead, he is pivoting with a sweeping call to unite the Republican Party by painting himself as the outsider able to capture the imagination of a party searching for leadership.

Already moving on to Pennsylvania, Cruz is saying: "This generation needs to answer a new set of questions. Can we? Should we? Will we?"

Cruz is comparing his candidacy to Ronald Reagan's and John F. Kennedy's, asking the Pennsylvania audience, "Are we still those people, those dreamers and doers?"

The Pennsylvania primary is April 26.

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8:15 p.m.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich says he believes the Republican presidential primary will be "deadlocked" and delegates will choose their nominee at the party's convention in July.

Kasich spoke in Annapolis, Maryland, on the evening of the New York primary. Maryland holds its primary next Tuesday.

Kasich is predicting that neither Ted Cruz nor Donald Trump will win enough delegates to clinch the GOP nomination before the convention in Cleveland. He is pitching himself as a candidate with a positive and unifying message.

Former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich attended the event. He says Kasich's resume "reflects what the country needs right now."

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8:10 p.m.

Donald Trump will mark the results of the New York primary with a press conference in the Manhattan skyscraper he calls home.

Trump is expected to address the media Tuesday night sometime after polls close in his native state. He has held a commanding lead in all recent state polls.

The lobby of Trump Tower has been festooned with patriotic touches: a large American flag is hanging behind the podium from which Trump will speak and portions of the lobby are bathed in red, white and blue lights.

Unlike most other candidates, Trump usually eschews large election night rallies, instead choosing to address reporters and a small group of friends and supporters.

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7:35 p.m.

New Mexico Gov. Susan Martinez is expressing fundamental differences with presidential candidate Donald Trump on his proposal to build a bigger wall along the southern U.S. border and make Mexico pay for it.

Martinez told the Associated Press on Tuesday that building fences can impact the U.S. economy and relationship with trading partners in Mexico and farther south.

The chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association confirmed comments made behind closed doors as she traveled last week to a Republican gala in New York City attended by Trump, and a Republican Governors Association fundraiser in Florida.

Martinez is frequently mentioned as a potential vice presidential pick. She says she understands the need for a secure border as a former prosecutor who has lived near the border for some 50 years.

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7:30 p.m.

Hundreds of voters have complained to New York's attorney general about problems at polling places during the state's presidential primary.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's voter hotline received 562 phone calls and 140 emails by late afternoon Tuesday. That's compared to 150 complaints received during the 2012 general election.

A Schneiderman spokesman says this year's total number of election complaints is "by far" the most it's handled since Schneiderman took office in 2011.

The complaints include registration problems, a lack of privacy at the voting booth, accessibility and poor instructions from poll workers.

Schneiderman's office says it received many complaints from people complaining that they were not allowed to cast a primary ballot because they had not registered with a political party.

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7:15 p.m.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is telling thousands of supporters at Penn State that his rival Hillary Clinton is "getting a little bit nervous" by his recent string of wins.

Sanders addressed the boisterous crowd in Pennsylvania Tuesday as New Yorkers voted in their state's crucial presidential primary.

Earlier, in an interview with The Associated Press, Sanders said he expects his campaign will "surprise" people and do "a lot better than people think."

He dismissed claims by the Clinton campaign that his path to victory is "close to impossible," saying "that's what people who are getting nervous will say."

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5:40 p.m.

New Yorkers— Democrats and Republicans alike— are concerned about the economy. And many in both parties are worried about the influence of Wall Street.

Large majorities of voters in either primary Tuesday said they are concerned about the direction of the national economy, and voters on both sides were most likely choose it as the top issue facing the country, according to early results of exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research.

About 6 in 10 Democrats regard Wall Street as detrimental to the U.S. economy, while 3 in 10 say the New York City financial sector helps. GOP voters were nearly even on the question.

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