A Good Night for Bad Candidates
Trump and Clinton win big in the Empire State.
Donald Trump has spent much of the last week complaining about how “phony,” “unfair,” “rigged” and “crooked” the primary process was in Colorado (among a few other states). But just because he didn’t bother trying to play by the rules — or even knowing what the rules are — doesn’t make them unfair. So it was rich to hear him boast after his blowout New York victory, “It is really nice to win the delegates with the votes. … Nobody should take delegates and claim victory unless they get those delegates with voters and voting.” Except that Trump took 60% of the vote and 96% of the delegates. Indeed, Trump has won more delegates than his share of the vote in 23 states. And overall, his 38% of the vote has netted him 47% of the delegates. How is that “fair”? He certainly isn’t complaining about the rules when they benefit him.
We’re being facetious to illustrate his hypocrisy. States set election rules, as prescribed by the Constitution. If some are winner-take-all, or winner-take-most, or proportionate, or use another process, that is for the people of that state to decide. Not Donald Trump.
A couple of other pointed notes: For all his bluster about winning, New York marks the first time out of 34 states to vote so far that Trump has actually won a majority of the votes. And he lost his native Manhattan to John Kasich.
On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton won big in her adopted home state, further cementing her likely nomination. The amusing thing is Clinton’s win broke a streak of eight straight defeats, and it comes as her overall popularity is tanking and Sanders has caught her in national polling. The only person more widely disliked than Clinton is Trump. The latter still has a rough path to the nomination, but if he wins, both parties will be fielding very unpopular nominees. The general election should be quite entertaining.
Delegate count:
Donald Trump 845
Ted Cruz 559
John Kasich 147 (1,237 needed to win)
Hillary Clinton 1,893
Bernie Sanders 1,180 (2,383 needed to win)