On Tuesday, April 26th, five states held their primary elections: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Donald Trump swept all five states, continuing his alarming success this election cycle; Hillary Clinton emerged with the most delegates in all states but Rhode Island.
Pennsylvania had 17 Republican delegates and 189 Democratic delegates to distribute. The only state in which Donald Trump did not receive all Republican delegates was Rhode Island, which divides its delegates proportionately based on the number of votes each candidate receives. He has also shown an increase in popularity among late, undecided voters, a demographic with which he has formerly faltered.
This primary has only further called into question the strength and feasibility of the recently formed Cruz-Kasich alliance. Earlier this week, State Senator from Texas Ted Cruz and Governor of Ohio John Kasich announced their plan to focus their energies on campaigning for the Republican nomination in separate states-that is to say, each candidate will not be campaigning in every state that still has a primary, but that they hope to divide the vote in the remaining states such that Trump does not win every delegate. The issue, however, is whether Cruz or Kasich will even be able to garner enough support with this more targeted campaigning. After yesterday's primary, Trump only needs 283 delegates to win the nomination, whereas Cruz needs 675, and Kasich 1,084. With only 616 Republican delegates remaining, even if either Cruz or Kasich were to win every single delegate in the remaining states, it would not be enough to automatically win them the nomination. Their strategy, then, is to hope that Trump does not reach the necessary 1,237 candidates, and will not be chosen to be the Republican nominee at the Republican National Convention in July. The danger here lies in the fact that if Cruz or Kasich runs at the Republican candidate, Trump will likely run as a third party candidate, splitting the vote and almost guaranteeing that the Republicans will not win the presidential election in November.
On the Democratic side, Clinton won 206 delegates in yesterday's primary. Bernie Sanders won 146 delegates, but only managed to win a majority of them in Rhode Island, in which he received 13 delegates. Pennsylvania provides another example of the Clinton-Sanders demographic split. much like in New York, Clinton won primarily in urban counties, with tremendous leads in the areas surrounding Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. In the non-urban counties that Clinton won, Clinton and Sanders were neck and neck, with Clinton emerging victorious by as few as 18 individual votes in some areas. Sanders continues to do well with white, working class voters, and Millennials, but is falling behind in the number of delegates he is receiving. This is, of course, not universal, as Sanders won overwhelmingly in Providence county, but he does tend to generally do more poorly in urban areas.
Clinton only needs 232 delegates to receive the Democratic nomination, while Sanders needs 1,045. With 1,276 delegates remaining, it is possible that Sanders may receive the nomination, but unlikely, as he would need to receive nearly all of the remaining delegates, which would entail receiving an overwhelming majority of votes in every single remaining state. However, if we do not include superdelegate votes, the race is much closer. Superdelegates do not cast their vote until the Democratic National Convention in July, in which they ultimately decide which candidate receives the nomination.
