US presidential hopes wage final campaign in New York

NEW YORK / AFP

US presidential hopefuls launched a final campaign swing through New York on Monday on the eve of the state’s most decisive primary in decades as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump lead the polls and their rivals fight to catch up.
Registered Democrats and Republicans go to the polls in the country’s fourth most populous state Tuesday to elect their nominee for the White House in a fraught race still competitive on both sides.
It shines an unprecedented spotlight on the overwhelmingly blue state, which normally has little sway in presidential campaigns, in a year when three of the candidates—Manhattan billionaire Trump, former senator Clinton and Brooklyn-born Sanders—can each claim New York as home. The former secretary of state is steeling herself for a big win, determined to quash the momentum generated by her self-styled Democratic socialist rival who has won seven out of the last eight primary and caucus votes.
On Monday she was to campaign with New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand and former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived being shot in the head, on issues of women’s rights and raising incomes. The Democratic establishment has swung behind the former first lady. She is endorsed by the New York mayor and on Monday the state governor will join former president Bill Clinton in hitting the phones upstate.
While nationwide polls edge Clinton just 47-46 percent over the 74-year-old Sanders, in New York she leads by a whopping 53.7-40.9 percent, based on a RealClearPolitics poll average. “The margin will probably be a little tighter than people might expect, but we think we’re going to pull this out and that is going to be a very meaningful victory,” Clinton’s campaign press secretary Brian Fallon told CNN.Clinton holds 1,790 delegates compared to 1,113 for Sanders, putting her on course to scoop the 2,383 needed to secure the party’s ticket for the White House, where she last lived as first lady from 1993-2001.