DONALD TRUMP TOOK his home state of New York this week, opening up his lead on Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination to contest November’s US election.
However, despite his bravado, the businessman isn’t home and hosed just yet.
Following the New York win, Trump sits on 845 pledged delegates. He needs to get to 1,237 in order to automatically sew up the nomination.
There are 733 delegates left to take.
For Trump, the need to get over the line before the party’s convention in July is massive. A contested convention could see him unseated by a moderate voice, one backed by the Republican establishment. For as much as Trump seems an outsider’s voice in US politics, he is an outsider within his own party.
The businessman’s win in his home state keeps him on a path to securing the 1,237 delegates he needs, though he’ll have to perform well in the round of primaries in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware on Tuesday and in California’s huge contest on 7 June.
His chief rival, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, has no mathematical path to getting the nomination through primary voting. But he now 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.
The side-by-side GOP efforts at this late stage — with Trump amassing primary victories while Cruz digs for the support of delegates who could settle the nomination — are unprecedented in recent presidential campaigns and add to the deeply uncertain nature of the race.
Cruz conceded to reporters in Florida that he cannot win the GOP nomination before the convention but insisted Trump couldn’t either. He said it was clear “that we are headed to a contested convention.”
Trump’s campaign has struggled to keep up with Cruz in working the delegate system, deepening the urgency around his team’s efforts to clinch the nomination before the Cleveland convention.
That urgency has seen Trump ramp up his efforts to appoint a more professional staff, to temper his remarks on social media and even to begin punctuating political appearances with mentions of specific policies.
With the win in New York, Clinton made her lead almost unassailable, paving the way for a showdown with former political ally Trump.
According to Real Clear Politics, which aggregates all polls, Clinton leads the race against Trump by an average of 9.3 percentage points.
With Associated Press reporting.
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