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PHILADELPHIA — Five states began voting Tuesday in the “Amtrak Primary” in contests expected to help the two presidential front-runners, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, rack up ever-wider leads in their parties’ crucial delegate counts.
For Republicans, the race for delegates remains a key focus, with Trump hoping to secure the 1,237 delegates needed before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. His rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich – now loosely aligned in hopes of stopping Trump – are not expected to significantly cut into the billionaire’s lead.
“I just hope everybody goes out and votes,” Trump said on Fox News on Tuesday as he continued to decry the delegate selection process as rigged and corrupt.
“The whole delegate system is a sham,” he said.
On the Democratic side, polls in recent days suggest that Clinton could win all but one or two of the five states up for grabs -Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware – or potentially sweep the table.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the upstart White House hopeful who has stirred the passions of liberals, made a final appeal for support in Philadelphia on Monday ahead of primaries that could render his already narrow path to the Democratic nomination virtually nonexistent.
“If you come out to vote tomorrow and drag your friends and your aunts and your uncles and your co-workers, we’re going to win here in Pennsylvania,” Sanders declared at a rally at Drexel University, where he was greeted with boisterous cheers by a crowd of more than 3,000 people as he promised to fight a “rigged economy” and take on a “corrupt” campaign finance system.
After a winning streak that started in late March, Sanders’s momentum stalled considerably after Clinton’s decisive victory in New York.
“It’s a narrow path, but we do have a path,” Sanders said on CNN’s “New Day.” “We’re in this to the end.”
In a town hall forum on MSNBC on Monday night in Philadelphia, Clinton emphasized that she has won millions more votes than Sanders in the primary.
“I am winning,” Clinton said. “And I’m winning because of what I stand for and what I’ve done.”
Clinton appeared to be moving past Sanders – taking a swipe at Trump for flying into parts of the country on a “big jet,” painting him as an out-of-touch magnate ensconced in the towers bearing his name.
“Donald Trump says wages are too high in America and he doesn’t support raising the minimum wage,” Clinton said Monday. “I have said, come out of those towers named for yourself and actually come out and talk and listen to people.
“At some point, if you want to be president of the United States, you’ve got to get familiar with the United States,” she added, to laughter from the crowd.
Trump, who has stirred outcries over remarks about women during the campaign, took sharper aim at Clinton, declaring that she would be a “terrible president” who is playing up the fact that she is a woman.
“I call her crooked Hillary because she’s crooked and the only thing she’s got is the woman card. That’s all she’s got… . It’s a weak card in her hands,” Trump said on Fox. “I’d love to see a woman president, but she’s the wrong person. She’s a disaster.”
Trump also blasted his remaining two GOP presidential rivals after they announced an agreement Sunday to coordinate in upcoming primary contests with the aim of preventing Trump from securing the nomination.
“Honestly, it shows such total weakness, and it’s pathetic when two longtime insider politicians – establishment guys, whether you like it or not – have to collude, have to get together to try to beat a guy that really speaks what the people want,” Trump said during a campaign event in Warwick, R.I., on Monday.
The Cruz-Kasich alliance ran into its own speed bumps Monday that exposed the plan’s risks and called into question whether it would work.
In their unconventional last-ditch scheme, Kasich said he would clear the way for Cruz to face Trump in Indiana while Cruz would return the favor in Oregon and New Mexico. The plan aimed to produce what anti-Trump Republicans have yearned for since the fall: a one-on-one showdown with the mogul.
But less than 12 hours after the pact was announced, Kasich undercut the idea by declaring Monday that his supporters in Indiana should still vote for him. The Ohio governor also plans to keep raising money in the state and to meet Tuesday with Republican Gov. Mike Pence.
Kasich grew testy on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday morning when asked about the deal, saying: “I think you’re having a hard time figuring this out.”
He still did not tell voters to cast a ballot for Cruz.
“I have laid out a strategy and I have not told anybody to not vote for me,” Kasich said Tuesday, noting that he just isn’t campaigning in Indiana. “I don’t tell people how to vote.”
Cruz repeatedly said that Kasich was “pulling out” of the state. A super PAC supporting the senator from Texas also said it would continue to air an anti-Kasich ad in the state – a sign the Cruz camp fears Kasich could still peel away enough support to sink Cruz’s chances in Indiana.
When asked on WIBC in Indianapolis if the agreement could lead to a Cruz-Kasich ticket, the Texas senator balked.
“I think that is very, very premature,” Cruz said. The candidate said earlier Tuesday that his campaign is vetting vice presidential nominees, but declined to name them. Instead, the alliance has to do with “allocation of resources.”
Both men focused on the idea that they are trying to prevent Clinton from becoming president.
“I’m not out to stop Donald Trump. I’m out to stop Hillary Clinton,” Kasich said, asserting that Trump has “zero” chance of beating Clinton.
Cruz urged Kasich’s supporters to back him, attempting to paint himself as the only candidate who could win both the primary and general elections. Trump, he said, could win the nomination but not the general election, and Kasich could win the general election but not the primary.
“If you don’t want to hand the election to Hillary Clinton, do not vote, I ask you, for Donald Trump, but if you want to beat Donald Trump, don’t vote for John Kasich either,” he said on WPHT radio in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
“As Mitt Romney said a couple of weeks ago, a vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump,” Cruz said.
The Texas senator conceded that Trump may have a “good day” in Tuesday’s contests. Cruz has moved on from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. He will hold a rally Tuesday night in Knightstown, Ind., at the Hoosier Gym where the movie “Hoosiers” was filmed.
The tumult between Cruz and Kasich fueled doubts about the arrangement among voters and Republican elites, who worried that Cruz and Kasich have handed Trump a ready-made argument that the party establishment is plotting against him. The mogul said as much in a series of stump speeches on the eve of primary voting.
Even though the agreement supposedly only affected three later-voting states, it weighed on some voters in Pennsylvania.
“I don’t want Cruz to win – I just don’t,” said Carolyn Moy, 68, before casting her vote for Kasich in McKees Rocks, Pa., where the candidate grew up.
“I don’t like him, and I think it’s telling that nobody in the Senate likes him. I guess they’re trying to get rid of Trump, but I have mixed emotions about that, too. All I know is that Kasich needs to stay in, because the other guys can’t beat Hillary.”
In Maryland, voting got off to a slow start at Friendly High School in Fort Washington. Only about 100 people had cast ballots by 10 a.m. Election judges expect a higher turnout Tuesday afternoon.
The voters included Frances Brown and Tyrone Cooper, who cast their ballots for Sanders.
“He seems to understand our people more. He has been on the front lines,” said Brown, 26, who is African American. “I feel like this may be his time.”
Erika Dickstein of Bethesda said that she voted for Clinton but that she “didn’t have a great level of enthusiasm” about her Democratic choices for president. Asked why she voted for Clinton, Dickstein let out a long sigh and seemed to be trying to find the words.
After several seconds, she said, “Of the options available, I feel like she’s got the best chance to win.” She added, “And it’ll be great to have a woman.”
