1) Trump breaks threshold
Before the New York primary, many critics of Donald Trump pointed out that the GOP front-runner had not broken 50 percent in a primary. After a convincing majority in New York, Trump not only broke 50 percent in all five states Tuesday, he broke 60 percent in several others.
Even with the blowouts in back-to-back weeks, Trump still has a lot of work to reach 1,237 delegates in pledged delegates. He is moving away from his most favorable region yet, and going back out west, where his results has been mixed.
"We have had such incredible support throughout. This is a far bigger win than we could have predicted," Trump said Tuesday night. "Not only did we get all five, we got in the 60s. There are three people and when you crack 60, that is very hard to do. When you crack 60 with two people, that’s called a landslide."
But he also goes out west with momentum, which is hard to ignore.
This also marks the first time during the campaign Trump has earned 50 percent of delegates that have been divvied thus far. If he wins 50 percent of the remaining 622 delegates, he wins the nomination.
2) Clinton above 90 percent
According to the Associated Press, Clinton has picked up 90 percent of the number of the delegates needed for the Democratic nomination. Clinton has 2,137 combined delegates compared to 1,306 for challenger Bernie Sanders. In pledged delegates alone, Clinton has 1,618 compared to 1,267 for Sanders.
Clinton only needs to win 25 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the party’s nomination.
3) Path forward is bleak for challengers
While all five candidates vowing to stay in the race through June, it is now nearly impossible for Ted Cruz, John Kasich or Sanders to win their respective parties’ nominations without a floor fight.
Kasich has only picked up a handful of delegates since he won his home state of Ohio. The win in Ohio marks the only victory on Kasich’s resume. Meanwhile, Cruz has gone back-to-back weeks without a single delegate.
Trump said on Tuesday that Kasich had no place in the presidential race. Trump also declared himself the GOP’s presumptive nominee.
With every race being proportional, Sanders would nearly have to run the table among in the remaining 10 states to have any hope of catching Clinton.
4) Expect gender to be an issue
If the victory speeches from Clinton and Trump were any indicator, gender is going to be a key issue in the general election, assuming the two front-runners secure their party’s nomination.
Trump claimed on Tuesday that Clinton would only have 5 percent of the vote if she were a man.
“The only card she has is the woman’s card, she has nothing else going,” Trump said. “If frankly, if Clinton were a man, she would have 5 percent of the vote. The beautiful thing is women don’t like her, and look at how well I did with women tonight.”
Clinton fired back at Trump for using gender as an issue.
“Mr. Trump accused me of playing the woman card,” Clinton said. “Well if fighting for women’s healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in.”
