New York Primaries to be Held Today

Polls open shortly in the empire state and the front-runners in both parties spent Monday vying for every vote.

Likely hurt by his New York values comment, Ted Cruz has all but written-off New York City. Cruz spent last week trying to court upstate New Yorkers, but is concentrating his efforts in Philadelphia and Maryland now – both of which are among the five states holding primary events next Tuesday.

John Kasich has focused his efforts yesterday and today in upstate New York in a bid to pull at least a few delegates away from Donald.

Donald Trump is hoping for a full sweep of New York’s 95 delegates, but due to the precinct-by-precinct award process that the state GOP uses, Kasich and Cruz could pull almost one third of delegates away from the front-runner:

Each of New York’s 27 congressional districts has three delegates to award. If the Donald clears 50 percent in a district, he lays claim to all three — but if he comes in anywhere below that threshold, even at 49 percent, he collects two delegates, and the runner-up takes one. According to a Politico poll released last week, Trump runs up big margins in Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, but he’s stuck around 40 percent in many districts upstate. And then there are districts like Charlie Rangel’s up in Harlem, where the race will be decided by, approximately, two Republican families. The Politico poll suggests that Cruz and Kasich could scoop up as many as 24 of the state’s 95 delegates. With Trump’s path to a pre-convention majority already claustrophobically narrow, the front-runner has to hope that late-deciders upstate give him a few more district-level landslides.

The Democrat candidates are in a much closer race. Hillary focused her efforts where’s she’s comfortable – in Manhattan with a celebrity – while Bernie visited all five boroughs and garnered healthy crowds. Unfortunately for the revolution, Bernie still trails Hillary in New York by roughly 15 points.

Polls open at 6 am in these locations:

• New York City
• Nassau Suffolk County
• Rockland County
• Putnam County
• Erie County

All other county polls open at noon.

Polls close at 9 p.m.