Seeking to extend their dominance in the presidential race, front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Tuesday put their bets on primaries in five delegate-rich East Coast states which could move them closer to earning their party’s nomination for the November polls.
Trump, 69, and Clinton, 68, are poised to win the five-state primaries on Tuesday, if the latest opinion polls are to be believed.
This would give Clinton and Trump - both New Yorkers - a clear edge over their primary rivals and move them several steps closer to earning the party’s nomination for the November general elections, which would decide President Barack Obama’s successor to the White House.
There are 172 Republican delegates at stake, and 384 up for grabs on the Democratic side in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.
However, even a clear cut win in all of these five states is unlikely to make either Clinton and Trump a presumptive nominee, which normally had been the case by now in previous presidential elections.
Trump, who has won 845 delegates so far, is still several hundred delegates short of the required 1,237 delegates. He is followed by Senator Ted Cruz from Texas with 559 delegates and Governor John Kasich with just 148 delegates.
The last two has no mathematical path to reach the 1,237 delegate count before the Republican Convention in Cleveland in July.
But a five-state sweep for Trumo with large margins of victory could put an effective end to the so-called ‘Stop Trump Movement’ that has been counting on some combination of Cruz and Kasich to block his march to the 1,237 delegate total.
The Cruz-Kasich alliance only came together, after Trump crushed the competition in New York.
On the other hand, Clinton has won 1,428 delegates in the primary elections so far and is closely followed by Senator Bernie Sanders with 1,153 delegates.
Clinton has a distinct edge over Bernie Sanders in terms of super delegates who are party officials and an overwhelming majority of them have pledged their support to her. Addressing his supporters in Rhode Island, Trump lashed out at his two opponents Cruz and Kasich for forging a strategic alliance to defeat him.
“If you collude in business, or if you collude in the stock market, they put you in jail. But in politics, because it’s a rigged system, because it’s a corrupt enterprise, in politics you’re allowed to collude,” he said.
Cruz and Kasich appeared to have already conceded defeat in the five states, but said they hope to slow down Trump s momentum. While Cruz would focus in Indiana, Kasich would devote his entire resources in New Mexico and Oregon.
Hillary has 3% lead over Trump, Sanders 11%: Poll
In a head-to-head match-up, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has a three percent advantage nationally over her Republican rival Donald Trump, according to a new poll.
The latest George Washington University Battleground (GW Battleground) poll puts her ahead at 46 to 43, with 11 percent of the voters undecided.
Interestingly, though, Senator Bernie Sanders, who has mounted a spirited but now seemingly futile challenge against Clinton, fares much better against Trump nationally, with an 11 percent advantage at 51 to 40, with the rest undecided.
The bipartisan poll, conducted in partnership with The Tarrance Group and Lake Research Partners, found that among “likely voters” an overwhelming 89 percent have been following the nomination process of the two parties closely - and that they have “negative views of almost all major candidates”.
The poll found that of the five candidates still in the race for the highest office, only two - Vermont Senator Sanders and Ohio governor John Kasich - have an unfavourable rating below 50 percent, at 44 and 29, respectively.
The three others - former Secretary of State Clinton (56 percent), Texas Senator Ted Cruz (55 percent) and businessman Trump (65 percent) - are all mostly disliked, with a majority of voters saying they would not consider voting for them for president.
Interestingly, the poll found that former president Bill Clinton, who has been campaigning for his wife, has a higher favourability rating than four of the five contenders: with 54 percent favourable and 41 percent unfavourable.
The current president, too, fared better than the candidates. President Barack Obama’s job approval rating was at 51 percent. This is the first time since December 2012 that the GW Battleground Poll found a higher approval than disapproval rating for President Obama.
“There is bad news aplenty here for both parties. Voters are disheartened, discouraged about the future and disdainful of the leading candidates in both parties,” Christopher Arterton, founding dean of the GW Graduate School of Political Management was quoted as saying in a release.