Voters went to the polls in five states on Tuesday, April 26, to choose a presidential nominee. This post was updated throughout the day with news, analysis, exit polls and results for the Republican contests. For live updates of the Democratic races, follow this link.



Update (April 27, 6:35 a.m. PT): Trump closes in on the nomination

Connecticut: Donald Trump 28, Ted Cruz 0, John Kasich 0

Delaware: Donald Trump 16, Ted Cruz 0, John Kasich 0

Maryland: Donald Trump 35, Ted Cruz 0, John Kasich 0

Pennsylvania: Donald Trump 17, Ted Cruz 0, John Kasich 0, 54 unbound delegates

Rhode Island: Donald Trump 9, Ted Cruz 1, John Kasich 5

Donald Trump has 949 delegates, Ted Cruz has 544 and John Kasich has 153. 1,237 delegates are needed to win the nomination.

Trump's "huge victory makes a majority of delegates seem well within reach," writes the New York Times, referring to the front-runner being able to win the nomination on the first ballot at the national convention. "That's in part because he amassed more delegates than expected, but also because his strength made wins in Indiana and California seem more likely than before." In short, because he performed better than expectations the past two weeks, Trump is almost certain to reach a delegate majority if he wins in the Hoosier State and California.

Update (April 26, 5:45 p.m. PT): Trump stands alone

"The whole delegate system is a sham," Donald Trump said earlier today, insisting once again that the Republican primary process is stacked against him.

Maybe so, but the real-estate magnate and reality-TV star increasingly looks like he's going to end up where he wants to be anyway: as the GOP's presidential nominee.

Trump won five more states on Tuesday, moving closer to the 1,237 delegates he needs for a first-ballot nomination at the national convention in Cleveland. A well-funded anti-Trump movement has been up and running for weeks. Rival candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich agreed to work together to block Trump. And none of it seems to matter.

"The more obstacles they put in his path the stronger he gets," a CNN political analyst pointed out this evening.

Trump is feeling confident enough in his position that he is increasingly looking ahead to the general election. In the past week he's directed a fair amount of his fire not at Cruz or Kasich but at presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

"I call her crooked Hillary because she's crooked and the only thing she's got is the woman card," he said on Fox News. "That's all she's got. ... It's a weak card in her hands. I'd love to see a woman president, but she's the wrong person. She's a disaster."

Next up is Indiana on May 3, which Kasich has abandoned to give Cruz a one-on-one shot at the front-runner. Trump looks more than ready for the fight.

Update (April 26, 5:40 p.m. PT): Trump wins Rhode Island, Delaware



Donald Trump has won the Rhode Island primary, multiple news sources project. Trump has also won the Delaware primary, according to the Associated Press.

Final results in all five states will be posted when they're available.

Update (April 26, 5:02 p.m. PT): Trump wins big

Donald Trump has won the Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut primaries, multiple news sources project. More projections and details to come.

Update (April 26, 3:33 p.m. PT): The National Enquirer has it in for Cruz

Ted Cruz can't catch a break from the National Enquirer. First the supermarket tabloid "reported" that the Evangelical Christian senator had "five secret mistresses." And now the Enquirer says it has "conclusive evidence" that Cruz's Cuban-born father, Rafael B. Cruz, was hanging out with Lee Harvey Oswald in August of 1963 when Oswald was handing out pro-Castro pamphlets on the street in New Orleans. Oswald, of course, would go on to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in November of that year. Conspiracy theories about the assassination continue to grow and evolve to this day.

The Cruz campaign's response to the Enquirer story, writes the Sacramento Bee: "This is another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage."

Rafael Cruz acknowledged in his recently published memoir that he was a Castro supporter until the Cuban revolutionary leader embraced Marxism. The "evidence" the Enquirer cites that it is the elder Cruz with Oswald in New Orleans is, needless to say, dubious.

Watch video of Oswald handing out pamphlets:

It isn't just the National Enquirer that is way out there with Cruz accusations. Early this year, social-media denizens started speculating about whether Cruz was actually the Zodiac Killer, the shadowy murderer who terrorized Northern California in the 1960s and 1970s and was never apprehended. The cheeky hypothesis caught on. In a late February poll, 10 percent of Florida voters said they believed Cruz was the infamous serial killer. (Most of the murders attributed to the Zodiac, it should be pointed out, happened before Cruz was born.)

Update (April 26, 2:42 p.m. PT): Exit polls

Early exit polls from the five states voting today suggest Donald Trump will indeed have reason to celebrate in the hours ahead. A representative sampling of the surveys:

36 percent of Pennsylvania Republican voters are "excited" about the possibility of Trump being president. 93 percent of Pennsylvania Republican voters are "worried" about the direction of the economy, the key element of Trump's pitch.

Can Texas Sen. Ted Cruz avoid getting shut out again, like he was last week in New York? He might win a congressional district or two in Pennsylvania, the exit polls suggest. 42 percent of the state's GOP voters today are white Evangelicals, where his core support comes from.

Will Ohio Gov. John Kasich be able to pick up some delegates? Maybe. 47 percent of Pennsylvania Republican voters are college graduates. 57 percent of Maryland Republican voters are college graduates. The professional class has been reasonably strong for Kasich, though Trump and Cruz have also had success with this group of voters.

Update (April 26, 1:50 p.m. PT): The New York Times on Trump

The New York Times, widely viewed by conservatives as a liberal publication, probably never was the favorite newspaper of most Donald Trump supporters. But whether his backers are reading the paper or not, the Times' editorial board has decided to weigh in on Trump. The board wrote today about the supposed effort within the Trump camp to remake The Donald:

"However conspicuously applied, cosmetics cannot obscure his brutish agenda, nor the narcissism, capriciousness and most of all, the inexperience paired with intellectual laziness that would make him a disastrous president."

Trump, of course, quickly responded on Twitter.

How bad is the New York Times—the most inaccurate coverage constantly. Always trying to belittle. Paper has lost its way! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2016

Update (April 26, 12:55 p.m. PT): Where the anti-Trump delegates are

Donald Trump is expected to win all five states that are voting today. But because of the way delegates are allocated via congressional district, and because the goal for Ted Cruz and John Kasich at this point is simply to deny Trump enough delegates for a first-ballot nomination, it isn't just about who wins these primaries. It's about whether Cruz and Kasich can pick off enough delegates to make Trump's path to a tidy convention ever-more difficult. That means there are some key congressional districts to keep an eye on as early returns are coming in.

One is Connecticut's 4th District, which includes Greenwich. The city isn't the state's largest but it has the most registered Republicans, and its profile makes it a place where Kasich has the potential to do significantly better than his statewide poll average. Writes Politico:

"If Kasich or Cruz can steal one of the state's five congressional districts, it will likely be the affluent 4th District -- where the Republican vote is anchored by wealthy and educated residents of Greenwich, Stamford and Bridgeport. In 2012, Mitt Romney ran about 10 points better in the 4th District than he did statewide."

In Maryland, the Kasich and Cruz campaigns have high hopes for the 3rd and 7th districts around Baltimore. "The majority-black 7th District is overwhelmingly Democratic and will be a key district for [Hillary] Clinton in her primary," Politico writes. "But a small number of Republicans will also vote there, and both Cruz and Kasich are hopeful they can sneak ahead of Trump there. The 3rd District snakes from the Baltimore Inner Harbor all the way down to Annapolis, but also includes a good chunk of Baltimore County. Anti-Trump groups are seeking to boost the more moderate Kasich there."

* Check out Politico's analysis.

Update (April 26, 11:30 a.m. PT): Jeb! The Musical

Donald Trump called one-time Republican presidential front-runner Jeb Bush "low energy" and mocked him right out of the race. But perk up Jeb fans, something good has come out of your man's disastrous campaign: "Jeb! An American Disappointment."

It's a musical, inspired by the Broadway smash "Hamilton" and, of course, Bush's failed presidential run. A bunch of college students started the satire and then crowd-sourced it. Is it worthy of a Broadway production? Well, the lyrics are fantastic -- if, that is, you're a student of the 2016 Republican primaries (lots of "in" jokes here). To wit, here's Trump and Bush opening the show with a rap duel:

Trump: Well the word got around, they said

"This campaign is lame, man.

Took up a collection just to give the guy some game, man

Get yourself some donors

Don't forget your family name

We already know your name, what's your name, man?

Jeb: Jeb Bush, exclamation point.

My name is Jeb Bush, exclamation point.

And there's a million things I haven't done

But please just clap, please just clap

This much we can say for certain about the musical: Jeb Bush's theatrical doppelganger, if the show is ever staged, won't be low energy. Check out the entire book for the musical.

Update (April 26, 10 a.m. PT): Could Trump hand the Senate to the Dems?

One of the reasons many Republican Party officials don't want Donald Trump as their presidential nominee: they believe he'll lead down-ticket GOP candidates off a cliff.

This is especially pertinent with regard to the U.S. Senate. Even if Jeb Bush had ended up as the Republicans' standard-bearer, it was going to be relatively tough for the GOP to hold onto the majority in the upper chamber. That's because Republicans this election cycle have 24 seats they're trying to hold onto while the Democrats have only 10. And seven of the GOP seats are in states won by President Obama, twice.

So Trump as the Republican nominee isn't simply an embarrassment, goes the grumbling. The off-the-cuff, insurgent candidate, whose poll numbers among the general electorate are historically bad right now, could push the Democrats back into control of the U.S. Senate. (The House of Representatives, because of gerrymandering, is safely Republican this year pretty much no matter what happens.)

For the Senate, the Democrats believe they can flip Republican seats in Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin, Talking Points Memo reports. If the Democrats sweep these states and hold almost all of their incumbents in place, the Senate would essentially be even-steven.

That was pretty much the Dems' best-case scenario a year ago. But with the expectation that Trump will be the GOP nominee, Democrats are now adding Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and North Carolina to their to-do list. The Senate seat they're after in Arizona is held by 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who's had it since 1987. Offered Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics:

"All the money in the world is not worth what a good presidential candidate would be worth. The members who pay the price for extremism at the top of the ticket are not the extreme members."

Right now, the Republicans have 54 Senate seats and the Democrats 44. There are two independents in the chamber, including Vermont's Bernie Sanders, who is running for president as a Democrat. The other indie is Maine's Angus King. Both caucus with the Democrats.

April 26 primaries preview (April 26, 5:30 a.m. PT): Trump on the rise

Businessman and reality-TV star Donald Trump crushed all comers in last week's New York Republican primary, exceeding the predictions of election-watchers and making it more likely that he can secure the 1,237 delegates needed for a straightforward first-ballot nomination.

This week, five more states are up: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. These too should all be Trump states.

In Connecticut, for example, the state's generally tony, big-business Republicans gave him 48 percent support in a recent Quinnipiac poll, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at 28 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 19 percent. In Pennsylvania, where struggling, working-class Republicans help define the party, Trump also leads by a comfortable double-digit poll average.

"Trump's brand -- a self-described common-sense conservatism -- plays well here," says Jim Campbell, the Republican Town Committee chairman for Greenwich, Conn.

But as the primary election calendar moves beyond the Northeast, Republican voters might start asking who the real Donald J. Trump is.

In private meetings with Republican Party officials last week, Trump's recently revamped staff insisted the candidate has been "projecting an image" to garner the votes of disaffected, blue-collar Republicans. They added that "the part he's been playing is now evolving" -- meaning, it seems, he's going to start sounding and acting something akin to a traditional politician, one who offers more policy profundity and fewer schoolyard insults.

"You'll start to see more depth of the person, the real person," said new senior strategist Paul Manafort. "You'll see a real different way."

And Trump's expected big wins this week actually might not end being as big as they seem, thus helping Cruz, Kasich and other anti-Trump Republicans keep alive the dream of a contested convention in which no one arrives with enough delegates to demand the brass ring.

That's because the big prize of the day is Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest state in the country. And Pennsylvania's primary, points out the Associated Press, "is relatively meaningless -- a beauty pageant." The news service adds:

"Pennsylvania will send a whopping number of delegates to July's unsettled Republican National Convention who, under a state party rule, can vote for whichever candidate they choose."

This is what Trump means when he talks about the system being "rigged" and "corrupt."

Pennsylvania has 54 delegates who are "uncommitted" and 17 other delegates who must vote for the winner of the statewide popular vote. So if the polls prove accurate, Trump will get those 17. But the lion's share will remain up for grabs, and ultimately, as Pennsylvania delegate candidate Michael McMonagle put it, it'll be all about "who can persuade who" in the run-up to or at the convention. So far, Cruz has proven adept at wooing uncommitted delegates, and Trump hasn't.

Plus, the Cruz and Kasich campaigns have acknowledged they are now working together in an effort to keep Trump under the magic delegate number. Reported AP: "The Kasich campaign will give Cruz 'a clear path in Indiana.' In return, the Cruz campaign will 'clear the path' for Kasich in Oregon and New Mexico."

Which means the race for the nomination is far from over. Though the states that vote this week and in May are undeniably important, Trump's quest for a majority of the delegates almost certainly will come down to California on June 7. The country's largest state, which is essentially 53 "micro-primaries" because of the way delegates are allocated there, will be able to push Trump over the top or hold him back. And California's minority Republican Party, though home to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is not about Hollywood flash and sizzle. It tends to be a small businessman's party, a traditional Main Street conservative party centered closer to Bakersfield than Los Angeles. This is one of the reasons Trump's new strategists are trying to tone down his populist bombast. The candidate, it seems, is getting the message.

"At some point," Trump said last week, "I'm going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored."

-- Douglas Perry