Election News

Clinton will enter Tuesday's contests about 250 ahead of Sanders in pledged delegates, a lead that grows to over 700 when including committed superdelegates. Clinton picked up 11 more of these after convincing win in New York. She now leads 513-38, with 163 uncommitted. Many of these uncommitted delegates have told the AP that they will support the candidate that win the most delegates from the primary and caucus events.

384 pledged delegates will be at stake in Tuesday's 5 primaries.

A recap of where things currently stand for each contest follows, beginning with a rough delegate projection based on polling averages*. As a reminder, all Democratic primaries allocate delegates (other than superdelegates) proportionately, with some based on the statewide result, some based on congressional district, if applicable**. The poll hours, all Eastern time, are believed accurate, but you should not rely on them to vote. (It does look like the polls close at 8PM in all five states). Click/tap a state name for more details.  

Pennsylvania (189 pledged delegates) The state has almost as many delegates as Tuesday's other four contests combined, which will make it the most closely-watched event of the day. Individual polls have bounced around a bit, but they all point to a Clinton victory. It looks like it may be a bit closer than last week's New York primary, which Clinton ended up winning by 16 points. Polls are open from 7AM to 8PM. 

Maryland (95) Polls here have consistently placed Clinton in the upper 50's, averaging 57% to Sanders 35%. Looks like an easy win here for Clinton. Polls are open from 7AM to 8PM.

Connecticut (55) Polling has been limited here. All three surveys out in recent weeks give Clinton a single-digit lead, although the latest one, out Monday, is only 2 points, well within the margin of error.

Rhode Island (24) A poll out Monday gives Sanders a four point lead; it is the only current poll in any of the five states to show him leading. However, a separate poll out Sunday has Clinton ahead by 9. Polls close at 8PM; opening time appears to be 7AM in most of the state.

Delaware (21) The only poll, released last week, has Clinton up by 7. Polls are open from 7AM to 8PM. 

If things play out roughly this way, Clinton will end the day about 300 ahead in pledged delegates. Factoring in superdelegates, she will only need about 200 more delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination. After Tuesday, the calendar gets lighter for the next several weeks, before culminating in June 7, a day that includes the huge California primary.

California polling has been pretty competitive. Additionally, there probably aren't enough delegates available before June 7 for Clinton to clinch outright (barring a commitment by most of the remaining superdelegates). Taken together, it leaves an opening for the Sanders campaign to continue until the end of the primary season should it so choose. His position could be strengthened by a win in California, although Clinton will likely clinch the nomination that day. 

* Assumes the vote in each congressional district mirrors the statewide vote. This is unlikely to be the case, but with only two candidates involved, some of the differences should offset.

** In states with only a single congressional district, a proxy is sometimes used to create a similar regional split. In Delaware, the state does this by creating four subdivisions. There is one each for Kent and Sussex County, with New Castle County split into Wilmington and the remainder.

270toWin: On its face, this deal would seem to benefit Cruz much more than Kasich, although its unclear how much overall impact it will have (or how long it will last). It might make a difference in Indiana, where recent polling shows a fairly competitive race between Trump and Cruz. That state offers 57 delegates that are winner take all (30 based on state result, 3 in each of the 9 congressional districts).

New Mexico and Oregon are much later on the primary calendar, and have smaller delegate pools that are proportionately allocated. Notably, the largest delegate prize -- California on June 7 -- is excluded. 

These three states will account for 64 pledged delegates on Tuesday. Pennsylvania has an additional 54 unbound delegates that will be elected directly. Tuesday's other two contests, Maryland and Delaware will account for another 54 delegates. Things look pretty promising for Trump in those locations as well. Our full preview of Tuesday's Republican contests can be found here.

For the Democrats, the poll finds a mixed bag Tuesday. Hillary Clinton has a ten-point lead in Pennsylvania, while Connecticut is nearly tied. In Rhode Island, Sanders leads by four.

These results are a bit more favorable for Sanders than other recent polling, although there has not been much available outside Pennsylvania.  That said, the Keystone State has almost as many delegates as Tuesday's four other contests combined, so the poll's findings, even if exactly right, will result in a nice delegate bump for Clinton. Our full preview of Tuesday's Democratic contests will be out later Monday.

A recap of where things currently stand for each contest follows, including a discussion of the delegate allocation procedure, as we understand it. The poll hours, all Eastern time, are believed accurate, but you should not rely on them to vote. (It does look like the polls close at 8PM in all five states). Click/tap a state name for more details.  

Pennsylvania The state will send 71 delegates to the Convention, although only 17 will be bound to the winner of Tuesday's statewide vote. The remaining 54 will be directly elected, three in each of the state's 18 congressional districts. These delegates are unbound, although they can make their leanings known in advance of the election. Polling points to a Trump win statewide: He's averaging in the mid 40s, with Cruz and Kasich in a tight battle for 2nd, some 20 points back. Polls are open from 7AM to 8PM. 

Maryland 14 of 38 delgates will go to the statewide winner. The remaining 24 will be allocated, in groups of 3, to the winner of each of the state's eight congressional districts. Trump has led all recent polling, and is averaging 41%, 14 points ahead of Kasich, who is slightly ahead of Cruz. Trump has led every poll this year, currently averaging about 10 points over Cruz. Polls are open from 7AM to 8PM.

Connecticut The state has 28 delegates. 13 of these will be based on the statewide result. If Trump exceeds 50% (he's just under that in limited polling), he'll earn those 13. Otherwise, they'll be allocated proportionately among any candidate reaching 20%. The state's five congressional districts are winner take all, 3 per district. It appears the polls are open from 6AM to 8PM. 

Rhode Island The state has 19 delegates to be allocated to those meeting a 10% threshold. There's been no recent polling; a new poll from Brown University is expected on Sunday. 13 delegates will be distributed proportionately based on the statewide vote. The other six will be based on the two congressional districts. Best as we can tell, each of the three candidates will end up with two of these. Polls close at 8PM; opening time appears to be 7AM in most of the state.

Delaware The 16 delegates go to the statewide winner. The only poll, released earlier in the week, showed Trump far ahead of the other candidates. Polls are open from 7AM to 8PM. 

Taken together, it looks like Trump is positioned to pick up 90-100 of those 118 delegates on Tuesday. Use our interactive delegate calculator to see if you can get him to 1,237.

The first competitive election:

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Florida, Florida, Florida:

Republican: Earning over 60% of the vote, Trump won at least 89 of the state's 95 delegates. John Kasich finished 2nd, with 3 delegates. As of this morning, 3 delegates remain to be awarded. The win gives Trump an almost 300 delegate lead over Ted Cruz. The Kasich delegates were the first he's earned since winning his home state of Ohio in mid-March. Kasich remains behind Marco Rubio, who has long since departed the race. Trump needs about 53% of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, while the path for Cruz, outside a contested convention, has become nearly mathematically impossible. 

Looking ahead, the calendar remains quite favorable for Trump. 172 delegates will be up for grabs in 5 Eastern states next Tuesday. Trump leads where polling is available, with averages north of 40%. 

Pennsylvania has 54 additional delegates not shown on the above chart. These will be elected directly and are unbound, although they can make their leanings known in advance. 

Democrat: Clinton also outperformed the polls, beating Sanders by 16 points. The win gave her 135 delegates while Sanders picked up 104. Eight delegates remain to be awarded. While proportional allocation gave Clinton only 30 more delegates than Sanders, a large number of delegates are now off the table, which makes the math increasingly difficult for Sanders. Clinton is now within 500 delegates of clinching the nomination; she needs about 29% of the remaining delegates. Next Tuesday offers five contests, with just under 400 pledged delegates, including almost 200 pledged delegates alone in Pennsylvania (210 including superdelegates).  We'd expect Clinton to have over 2,100 delegates by the completion of these contests.  

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Democratic Primary: Polling has been very consistent in the Empire State, with almost every survey in recent weeks showing Clinton between 51 and 55%, Sanders in the low 40's. On average, it's a 12 point, 54-42 lead for Clinton. Given the number of polls and the lack of variability, it would seem Clinton is likely to win here. That said, Sanders has been on a bit of a roll in recent weeks, winning 7 of the last 8 events. We've also seen his campaign defy expectations, as in Michigan where the Vermont Senator won despite being down by over 20 points in the polls.

New York has 291 delegates, more than 10% of the 2,383 needed to win the nomination. 247 of those will be awarded based on Tuesday's primary, with superdelegates making up the remaining 44. Of the 247, 163 will come from the state's 27 congressional districts, with each district having 5-7 delegates. 84 will be awarded based on the statewide vote. As in all Democratic contests, the allocation statewide, and in each district, will be proportional, subject to a 15% minimum vote to receive any delegates.

Clinton enters the day with a 1,776 to 1,125 lead on Sanders, including committed superdelegates. 34 of New York's 44 superdelegates are included in the committed number. If the polls are accurate, and assuming each district votes in the same proportion (that won't happen, but with just two candidates, some of the differences will cancel each other out), Clinton would end up with about 135 of the 247 awarded today, Sanders 112. While that difference isn't huge, it would move Clinton much closer to the nomination. Starting the day needing about 1/3 of the remaining delegates, she would need fewer than 25% if this scenario plays out.

Visit our Democratic Nomination page for more details, including delegate counts and maps, as well as links to detail on each Democratic primary/cacucus.

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Republican Primary: Barring a polling error of historic proportions, Donald Trump will cruise to an easy win here today. In the final 270toWin Republican polling average, Trump has 53%, 30 points ahead of John Kasich and 35 points ahead of Ted Cruz. 

New York has 95 delegates, 14 of which are awarded based on the statewide vote, with 81 (3 per) coming from the state's 27 congressional districts. Trump's win will most likely net him between 75 and 85 of these. The exact number will depend on if/where Trump wins the majority of the vote and where the other candidates are held below 20%. We reprint our flowcharts below; click/tap them for a full explanation of the allocation process.

After today, Trump will likely need fewer than 50% of the remaining unawarded delegates to secure the nomination, while Cruz will need over 90%. Visit our Republican Nomination page for more details, including delegate counts and maps, as well as links to detail on each Republican primary/cacucus and an interactive delegate calculator.

Statewide Poll Results: Trump received just under 49% in this poll, Kasich about 24% and Cruz about 14%. Since Trump had less than a majority in this poll, he would split the 14 statewide delegates proportionately with Kasich, the only other candidate at or above 20%. This would yield 9 delegates for Trump, 5 for Kasich.

District Results: Trump leads in all 27 districts, finishing above 50% in 11 of them. He would earn 3 delegates in those 11 districts and 2 in the other 16, for a total of 65 delegates. For those 16 districts where Trump had less than a majority, Kasich finished 2nd in 14 of them, Cruz 2nd in the other two. Those 2nd place candidates earn one delegate each.

Summing it all up, if these were the exact outcomes, Trump would receive an estimated 74 of the state's delegates, Kasich 19 and Cruz 2. One big caveat is that this is the only Republican New York poll, aside from another Optimus poll, that holds Trump under 50% statewide since early March. Therefore, barring a late shift, this poll might reflect something closer to a worst-case scenario for the Republican frontrunner. 

If Trump were to exceed 50% statewide, he'd get the other 5 state delegates and, depending on how far above 50% he actually was, he'd likely move over 50% in additional districts. The poll indicates he's within 3 points of 50% in 6 additional districts. If the actual vote breaks that way, Trump would be at roughly 85 delegates. 

New York Allocation Methodology

Statewide Vote: 14 delegates will be allocated based on the primary results across the state. A candidate getting a majority of the vote gets them all. Otherwise, the 14 are allocated proportionately across any candidates reaching 20%.

Congressional District Vote: For each district, a victory with >50% of the vote, or if only one candidate receives 20%, nets 3 delegates. Otherwise, the candidate with the most votes gets two delegates, the candidate in 2nd place receives one. 

The left part of the table shows the 17 potentially competitive races in 2016; Iowa has been added to the list since our last look in February. these are the seats that will determine control of the Senate. For a race to be in this list, at least one of three professional pundits needed to see the race as at least somewhat competitive. The other 17 seats were seen as safe for the incumbent party by all three; these are listed to the bottom right. The most competitive races are highlighted in green. These are races where at least one pro sees the race as leaning or toss-up.

In the top right, we've summarized what it all means. More than 70% (24 of 34) of the seats to be contested this year are currently held by Republicans, with the composition of safe seats much closer to 50-50. This puts the Democratic floor at 43 seats, Republicans at 40 or, put another way, 3 Democratic seats are at risk, while 14 Republican ones are in play. 

Six of the races are seen as likely (or even safe) by the pros. These are less likely to end up as competitive. If we adjust for that, we end up with a 'Likely' floor of 45 for Republicans, 44 for Democrats, with the remaining 11 seats likely to decide control of the Senate.

The three pro ratings we used are those of Sabato's Crystal Ball, The Cook Political Report and The Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report.