Trump Takes New York
Ballotpedia's scope changes periodically, and this article type is no longer actively created or maintained. If you would like to help our coverage grow, consider donating to Ballotpedia.
This article covering the 2016 presidential election was written outside the scope of Ballotpedia's encyclopedic coverage and does not fall under our neutrality policy or style guidelines. It is preserved as it was originally written. For our encyclopedic coverage of the 2016 election, click here.
April 20, 2016
Donald Trump is in a New York state of mind. The Republican presidential frontrunner and New York native swept his home state primary with 60 percent of the vote. In so doing, he reenergized his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. With 98 percent of the precincts reporting, he had won 26 of the state’s 27 congressional districts and was poised to capture 89 or 90 of the 95 national convention delegates that were allocated in the New York GOP primary.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich was a distant second place in the Empire State with 25 percent of the vote and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz finished third with 15 percent. Kasich won a handful of delegates in districts based in Manhattan, Albany and Syracuse, while Cruz was shut out in the New York delegate hunt.
Trump’s overwhelming victories in CDs 1, 2, 3 and 4 on Long Island bode well for him in Connecticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania which have similar kinds of suburban districts and hold their primaries just a week from now on April 26. He is going to have a new boost of momentum heading into those contests.
On his was to his overwhelming victory, Trump carried 61 of the state’s 62 counties, all except for the New York City borough of Manhattan (won by Kasich) where several of the billionaire developer’s buildings grace the skyline.
While some analysts have argued that the anti-Trump forces need to coalesce around one candidate in order to stop the billionaire celebrity from capturing the GOP nomination, such a consolidation in New York would have had minimal impact on the delegate race there. Combining the Kasich and Cruz vote in New York would mean that Trump would have won 23 of the state’s 27 congressional districts instead of the expected 26. In that scenario he would have won 69 of the 81 district delegates at stake instead of the 75 to 77 delegates that he is likely to collect once all the votes in New York are counted. And Trump still would have won all 14 of the at-large and RNC delegates, because he won a majority of the statewide vote.
Trump’s margin of victory was so large, that he dominated almost all of the categories and demographic breakdowns in television networks’ exit poll, a representative sampling of New York primary voters as they left their polling stations on Tuesday. He handily won men and women, as well as every income, age and education category although he continued to perform better among older and less well-educated voters. He won nearly two-thirds of self-described conservative voters and edged out Kasich among moderates, 46-to-42 percent.
The Republican nominating contest this year has provoked passionate views within the party, and in New York, Trump prevailed among voters on both sides of the argument. Asked in the exit poll whether they thought the GOP race had “energized” or “divided” the party, only about a third of the New York Republican primary voters said the former. Among those New Yorkers, Trump won almost four out of five. And while 59 percent said the GOP race had “divided” the party, Trump also captured a strong 49 percent plurality.
Although he’s been a combative and controversial candidate during much of the nominating contest, in New York, Trump was the clear consensus choice.
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He is a member of the CNN Decision Desk and is helping to project the Democratic and Republican winners throughout the election cycle.
See also
- Presidential election in New York, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
