Businessman secures key victory in Empire State as he seeks to clinch the 1,237 delegates needed to become the Republican nominee

Donald Trump swept to victory in his home state of New York on Tuesday, reviving his hopes of winning the Republican party nomination outright.

The billionaire businessman was always expected to thrive in his home state and there was never much doubt that he would defeat Ted Cruz, the Texas senator whose brand of conservatism went down badly here, and Ohio governor John Kasich, who struggled to make an impact.

But after victory was called for Trump by the Associated Press just moments after polls closed, it became clear that he would claim most of the 95 Republican delegates up for grabs in New York, strengthening his assertion that he is the only candidate with a realistic shot at the 1,237 needed to clinch the GOP nomination.

With over 95% of the vote counted, Trump was on 60%, with Kasich on 25.2% and Cruz trailing with just 14.8%.

“It’s just incredible,” Trump told a crowd at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “I guess we’re close to 70%, and we’re gonna end at a very high level, and get a lot more delegates than anybody projected, even in their wildest imagination.”

Trump led in four of the five boroughs of New York City – but on his home turf of Manhattan, Kasich was slightly ahead, 45%-43%, after almost 100% of the vote had been counted. In Queens, where the billionaire grew up, he was firmly ahead with 67%.

Trump had 64% of the vote in Kings County, which covers Brooklyn, and in Richmond County (Staten Island) he was on 81%. In the Bronx, he had a 52-point lead over his nearest rival, Kasich.

Upstate, county after county fell to Trump as the results came in.

Donald Trump's back – and there's nothing the Republican party can do | Christopher Barron Read more

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton’s victory over Bernie Sanders was called about 45 minutes after polls closed. With over 95% of the votes tallied, Clinton led 57.7% to 42.3% and was firmly ahead in New York City.

Hillary Clinton wins decisive victory over Bernie Sanders in New York Read more

The Republican frontrunner arrived at his victory celebration in Midtown Manhattan by entering the lobby of Trump Tower to the strains of Frank Sinatra singing New York, New York, then launched a broadside at the Republican establishment.

“It’s impossible to catch us,” declared the Queens-born tycoon, surrounded by brass, marble and a big TV showing Fox News. “Nobody should take delegates and claim victory unless they get those delegates with voters and voting, and that’s what’s going to happen. And you watch because the people aren’t going to stand for it. It’s a crooked system, it’s a system that’s rigged and we’re going to go back to the old way: it’s called you vote and you win.”



He went on to compare the Republicans’ nominating process with that of the Democrats, where Sanders’ recent string of victories have made little impact on the delegate count. “Nobody can take an election away with the way they’re doing it in the Republican party. And by the way, I am no fan of Bernie, but I’ve seen Bernie win, win, win and they say he has no chance of winning. They have the superdelegates; the Republican system is worse.”



After the speech, Paul Manafort, who has in effect taken charge of Trump’s campaign, said: “He’s saying the system is rigged, and the system is rigged. It’s rigged in all 50 states where they have different rules that don’t take into account modern political presidential campaigns. We’re not complaining about the rules, we’re saying the people don’t understand that when they vote, they’re not necessarily voting for him.”



The GOP race has reached a critical stage in which every delegate counts. After Tuesday, Trump led with 845, ahead of Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 147. But after recent setbacks in Wisconsin and Wyoming, Trump’s path to an outright win has become precarious.



If he falls short of that target, he faces the prospect of a contested Republican convention in Cleveland in July, at which his delegates would be free in a second ballot to vote for a different candidate. There are already signs that he is being outmanoeuvred by Cruz when it comes to recruiting delegates. Critics say it has exposed his small and slapdash organisation.

“Trump hemorrhaging delegates all over the map,” tweeted David Plouffe, campaign manager for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. “Epic political malpractice. Just epic.”

This makes New York vital both in terms of numbers and perception, with the controversial tycoon hoping to use his victory to regain momentum and reset the narrative to one in which he can set his popular backing against the party establishment and its complicated state-by-state rules for choosing a nominee.

After voting for his father on Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr told the Guardian: “I think the Republican party has an opportunity to do something great and bring in a lot of people – and they have the opportunity to totally blow it and disenfranchise all the people that my father’s brought in and everyone else who thought the people’s voice mattered.

“It’s sort of amazing to live in this country and realise that the people’s voice doesn’t matter because that’s the way the establishment and the GOP has set it up.”

Trump himself has previously warned that there could be “riots”, “a rough July” and “a very, very angry and upset group of people at the convention”. On Tuesday, he voted at a synagogue near Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, surrounded by a throng of reporters. It was a “great honour” to be able to vote for himself, he said.

“We’re going to go into the convention, I think, as the winner,” Trump said in his Manhattan victory speech. “I wanna just thank everybody. I have great, great admiration and praise for the city of New York and the state of New York. I can think of nowhere I would rather have this victory!”

He added: “We don’t have much of a race any more, going by what I see on television. Senator Cruz … I’ve pretty much knocked the hell out of him.”

Trump spoke for 10 minutes from a lectern in the lobby of Trump Tower, near the shiny brass lifts that brought many Apprentice contestants down to earth after being fired, the escalator that Trump himself descended last June to announce that he was running for president (while notoriously referring to Mexican immigrants as criminals, drug dealers and rapists) and the marble waterfall where he has given countless TV interviews during his improbable campaign.



A giant American flag hung against a blue curtain next to a currency exchange. Luxury handbags and watches could be seen in a boutique store nearby. Suited supporters crowded in the lobby chanting: “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “USA! USA! USA!” Media from all over the world were crammed in, with only standing room available, but the candidate did not take questions.

Trump has drawn big crowds at rallies across New York state, reiterating his promises to defeat Clinton in a general election, bring back jobs from overseas and build a wall along the Mexican border. He gained the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, who was New York City’s mayor on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

And he looks set to continue his once unthinkable winning streak on 26 April when Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island vote, with a combined total of 118 delegates at stake. The demographics appear to favour Trump and he is doing well in opinion polls there, but he then faces an uphill climb in states that could lean towards Cruz.

There also signs of discord and discontent in his campaign. After months relying on a shoestring campaign and free publicity, Trump is significantly expanding his staff and spending, with $20m set aside for contests in May and June. Veteran operative Manafort was hired to mastermind his delegate fight but this has led to a turf war with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, creating rival centres of power.

Trump admitted to Fox News on Tuesday: “When you bring other people in, I could see some people their feelings get a little bit hurt. But frankly, you know, we’re in a position where we’d like to see if we can close it out.”

But on Tuesday night he dismissed recent reports of disharmony. “It’s actually a team of unity, it’s evolving, but people don’t understand that. The press does understand it, they just don’t want to talk about it. That’s OK. Just keep talking, it’s very important.”

Cruz, who was not allowed to forget his derision of “New York values” earlier in the campaign, was braced for a poor showing in Tuesday’s results. He left the state long before polls closed and spent the day in Pennsylvania, which votes next week, debuting a new stump speech to a crowd of more than 100 people at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Pre-emptively dismissing Trump’s expected blowout as “a politician tonight winning his home state”, Cruz sought to reframe himself as outsider similar to Bernie Sanders. “I am an outsider, Bernie Sanders is an outsider,” he said.

“Both with the same diagnosis, but both with very different paths to healing. Millions of Americans have chosen one of these outsiders,” he said, adding: “Ronald Reagan and Jack Kennedy were outsiders.”

He also raised comparisons with Obama, introducing “yes we will” as a new slogan in contrast to the president’s “yes we can”.

“Our sitting president ran on a slogan that should have been a great first step,” said Cruz. “It promised us: yes we can.”

Cruz has long railed against “the Washington cartel” but this marked a new framing of that message with more optimistic rhetoric.

Kasich, the only other Republican left in the race, was seeking to add to his small delegate total and maintain his attempt to emerge as a viable alternative at the convention.



John Weaver, the Ohio governor’s top strategist, was confident early in the evening that his campaign would pick up some delegates in New York. He went on to note that Cruz’s collapse in the Empire State presaged what will be a rough night for him next week.

“What is happening to Cruz in New York is corresponding with what we’re seeing in the other April 26 states … He’s cast in a very narrow lane.”

