Sanders took Rhode Island.
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With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Republican Donald Trump won with 58 percent of the party’s votes, and John Kasich came in second with 28 percent. And his victories were decisive, too – in each state he was winning with at least 57 percent of the vote. He appeared on the stage at Trump Tower in NY with a big grin on his face to Start It Up by the Rolling Stones.
“It’s over. As far as I’m concerned it’s over”, he declared.
After the latest primary results, Senator Ted Cruz has 559 delegates and his path to nomination before the convention is impossible.
Mr Trump said on Twitter Mr Sanders had been treated terribly by the Democratic Party, and suggested he run as an independent.
Mr Trump, the Republican businessman, pushed forward with his charge that Mrs Clinton is “playing the woman card”, telling CNN’s New Day that “she does have the woman card” but said that “a lot of women don’t like Hillary, despite the card”. Clinton’s victories build on her resounding success in NY, which stunted Sanders’ momentum and left the Vermont Senator fending off calls from Clinton supporters to fold his campaign so that she can start exclusively targeting Republicans.
A big question in the GOP primary has been whether Trump can win over women voters, who tend to support him less than their male counterparts. Cruz won about 20 percent of those counties, while Kasich won just 2 percent of them.
To push the race to a “contested” convention, he would need to do well in large states, such as in, which has 92 delegates, New Jersey, which has 142 delegates, and California, which 546 delegates.
The vastly rural IN has many conservative pockets that the Cruz camp believe will be favorable to the Texas firebrand, according to published reports.
The next primary is scheduled in IN next Tuesday where Cruz and Kasich have entered into a strategic alliance to prevent Trump from getting 1,237 delegates.
Meanwhile, Ted Cruz got more bad news than just losing the election to Trump.
Short of something extraordinary happening, Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. A candidate needs 2,383 to claim the Democratic Party nomination.
Speaking at a rally in Knightstown, Indiana, Mr Cruz said: “Tonight this campaign moves back to more favourable terrain”. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign will be looking for work tomorrow, after Sanders announced Wednesday that his campaign is laying off hundreds.
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“If we win this, every one of those great people who have helped us get this far, they will be rehired”, Sanders said.
