Trump’s victory was a psychological boost for his campaign, though the impact on his path to the Republican nomination was still to be determined by the number of delegates he secured.
If he captured more than 50 per cent of the vote, he would be in strong position to win most of New York’s 95 delegates, an impressive haul.
Trump leads the Republican race with 756 delegates, ahead of Senator Ted Cruz with 559 and Ohio Governor John Kasich with 144. Securing the Republican nomination requires 1,237.
Among Democrats, Clinton has 1,758 delegates to Senator Bernie Sanders’ 1,076.
Those totals include both pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses and superdelegates, the party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice regardless of how their state votes. It takes 2,383 to win the Democratic nomination.
With the votes still being counted, Trump declared that it was “impossible” for his rivals to catch him.
“We don’t have much of a race anymore,” he said during a victory rally in the lobby of the Manhattan tower bearing his name.
He peppered his confident remarks with more references to the economy and other policy proposals than normal, reflecting the influence of a new team of advisers seeking to professionalise his campaign.
Clinton’s triumph padded her delegate lead over rival Bernie Sanders, depriving him of a crucial opportunity to narrow the margin. Sanders vowed to compete through all of the voting contests, though his odds of overtaking Clinton at this stage in the race are low.
“We’ve got a shot to victory,” Sanders said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We have come a very long way in the last 11 months, and we are going to fight this out until the end of the process.”
Sanders spent Tuesday in Pennsylvania, as did Trump’s main rival Ted Cruz.
The Texas senator panned Trump’s win as little more than “a politician winning his home state,” then implored Republicans to unite around his candidacy.
“We must unite the Republican Party because doing so is the first step in uniting all Americans,” Cruz said in remarks read off a teleprompter.
AP
