Trump, Clinton Set for Northeastern Romps Ted Cruz is already looking toward Indiana

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are well-positioned to garner another string of victories in the cluster of Northeastern states that vote Tuesday, as each seeks to claw closer to clinching their party’s presidential nominations.

Trump holds polling leads of 38 points in Rhode Island, 37 points in Delaware, 34 points in Connecticut, 26 points in Pennsylvania and 14 points in Maryland, lending him a real shot at a five-state sweep over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the GOP primary slog.

Clinton’s advantages over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race are smaller, but still significant. She leads him by 25 points in Maryland, 10 points in Pennsylvania, 7 points in Delaware and just 2 points in Connecticut. Rhode Island has produced surveys showing each candidate ahead, presenting a muddled picture.

But overall, the polling portends a favorable night for both party front-runners, with each set to pad their delegate leads as they head into the final month of nomination contests.

Trump enters Tuesday’s elections about 390 delegates short of the 1,237 needed to win the GOP nomination on the first convention ballot. Clinton has to collect about 440 more delegates to reach the 2,383 required to become the Democratic standard-bearer.

The earliest either of them likely will reach those totals is on June 7, when the final set of primaries is conducted. But time is running out for the candidates playing catch-up, a reality reinforced by the unique alliance formed by the Cruz and Kasich campaigns to divvy up three states voting in May and June – Indiana, Oregon and New Mexico – where they think they can defeat Trump.

In fact, even though Hoosiers don’t head to the polls for another week, Cruz already has turned his attention to Indiana. The Texan did just one weekend event in Pennsylvania on Saturday before blanketing Indiana with eight stops through Monday evening.

It’s a recognition of not only the Midwestern state’s elevated importance in preventing Trump from hitting the magic delegate number, but also a signal that the Cruz campaign has all but abandoned hopes of upsetting the New York City real estate mogul in one of the five Northeastern states voting Tuesday, which collectively hold 172 GOP delegates.

Trusted Leadership PAC, a pro-Cruz super PAC, is also looking ahead to Indiana, having reserved close to $1.6 million in television and radio advertising that began airing there Friday. And despite the newly announced alliance, the Cruz super PAC said Monday it will keep running an anti-Kasich spot in order to try to win “every possible vote for Sen. Cruz.”

Kasich himself showed the difficult signals voters in the state may receive in spite of the delicate deal that was struck.

“I’ve never told them not to vote for me,” he told reporters Monday, referring to his own Indiana supporters.

But it’s clear that regardless of Tuesday night’s results, Indiana is setting up as the next big battleground in the GOP effort to halt Trump.

“If Trump wins Indiana, I think you can pretty much count on Trump getting the requisite number of delegates. If Cruz can deny him 57 delegates, that’s significant,” says Rick Tyler, Cruz’s former communications director. “[Cruz] always knew New York and the Northeast would be tough.”

After adding 89 delegates last week with his trouncing of Cruz and Kasich in his home state of New York, Trump could net at least another 90 Tuesday night, which would increase his delegate lead over Cruz.

Pennsylvania’s system has a quirk that may make the overall delegate count fuzzy in the immediate aftermath. While the commonwealth boasts 71 delegates, 54 of them are elected directly by congressional district and can support whichever candidate they prefer at the national convention.

Though many have indicated they will follow the will of their voters, Cruz has courted the delegates running with personal phone calls and mailers. And how Trump fares with the slate of unbound delegates will be a vital test of his new convention manager Paul Manafort, who was brought into campaign leadership in order to bring focus and precision to the convoluted delegate-driven process, a system Trump has consistently decried.

At a rally in Warwick, Rhode Island, on Monday, an animated Trump razzed both Cruz and Kasich, saying their agreement for one or the other to step aside in particular states to consolidate votes against him amounted to collusion.

“It shows how weak they are, it shows how pathetic they are,” Trump said.

He even bestowed a nickname upon Kasich, calling him “1 for 41,” a reference to the governor’s abysmal win-loss ratio in nominating contests so far. “Very soon it’s going to be 1 for 46 or 7,” Trump predicted.

Meanwhile, Sanders appears to be coming to terms with his long odds of overcoming Clinton, acknowledging Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that his path to victory is “narrow,” but pledging to fight on through the last primary in California.

The former secretary of state could begin to hammer the final nails in Sanders’ coffin if she runs the table Tuesday night.

On the trail in recent days, she has largely ignored Sanders, instead focusing her remarks on party unity and drawing contrasts with her most likely general election foes, Trump or Cruz.

“Donald Trump actually says wages are too high in America,” Clinton said in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Sunday. “And they all want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Of course, they all have insurance, by the way. And they sure don’t want to take on the gun lobby, and they’re not interested in criminal justice reform.”

Speaking in Pittsburgh on Monday afternoon, Sanders again recited his familiar line that an overwhelming voter turnout would grant him a victory in Pennsylvania.

But a loss will only hasten calls for him to wind down his campaign, which has captured the imagination of young liberals but has failed to show measurable growth within core Democratic constituencies like African-Americans and older women.