Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware & Rhode Island primaries: election results and updates

Just two years ago, Katie McGinty came in fourth place in the Democratic primary for governor of Pennsylvania. There were only four candidates running. She gathered only 8 percent of the vote.

Now, she’s the party’s nominee for Senate in one of the most hotly contested races in the country.

During his victory press conference after sweeping five primaries Tuesday night, Donald Trump made an assertion that seemed overly confident even for him: He’d do better with women than Hillary Clinton, who could be the first woman to serve as president.

“The only card she has is the woman’s card. She’s got nothing else to offer,” Trump said in a response to a question from Vox’s Liz Plank. “And frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the woman’s card, and the beautiful thing is, women don’t like her.”

At this point, the 2016 primaries have offered a bounty of Super and Super-ish Tuesdays. There was the big Southern spectacular on March 1, the Michigan/Mississippi mashup of March 8, and the Florida/Ohio/Illinois/North Carolina/Missouri bonanza on March 15. You could throw in the March 23 Arizona/Utah/Idaho contest or last week’s New York primary, though those were arguably less super.

And Tuesday, April 26, was certainly not the most super of the bunch, but it was definitely the Trumpiest. Five states voted — Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware — and all five went to Trump. All but one went to Hillary Clinton.

Primary election Donald Trump can’t decide how “presidential” general election Trump should be.

Trump, who decisively swept all five primaries in Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania fielded multiple questions Tuesday on how he will act after winning the Republican nomination.

He’s not going to drop out of the race, but in the opening paragraph of his statement he speaks of looking forward “to issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests to come” — an indication that he’ll be ratcheting-down the anti-Clinton rhetoric, not ratcheting it up. But the real bombshell comes later in the statement when he describes the goal of amassing delegates primarily in terms of influencing the party platform rather than determining the nominee.

Read the whole thing (with emphasis added):

Though everyone expected Trump to do well today in a region that’s been strong for him, the sheer scope of his victory was still rather astonishing:

Now, there are still 10 states left to vote. And it is looking more and more likely that Trump will lock that delegate majority down outright. He’s ahead in recent polls of the two most important remaining states to vote — California and Indiana — and if he wins those two states handily, he gets his majority.

Donald Trump swept primaries in five states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday night, with Hillary Clinton close behind with four victories of her own. It was a night that solidified the position of both presidential front-runners, although none of their rivals were ready to concede the race just yet.

Trump won all five states: Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Donald Trump swept primaries in five states in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic on Tuesday night, with Hillary Clinton close behind with four victories of her own. It was a night that solidified the position of both presidential frontrunners, although none of their rivals were ready to concede the race.

Trump won all five states: Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

It’s time for Hillary Clinton to stop worrying about Bernie Sanders and start worrying about Donald Trump.

Clinton has, for all intents and purposes, locked the nomination up. At the same time, Sanders doesn’t want to drop out of the race until everyone has voted. And he has every right to go through with that plan.

As media outlets called Rhode Island for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, with early triumphs in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, claimed her victories with a nod to her rival.

“I applaud Sen. Sanders and his millions of supporters for challenging us to get unaccountable money out of our politics and giving greater emphasis to closing the gap of inequality,” Clinton said in her speech. “And I know together, we will get that done. Because whether you support Sen. Sanders or you support me, there’s much more that unites us than divides us.”

Update: Rep. Chris Van Hollen has been called the winner of Maryland’s Democratic Senate primary.

FREDERICK, MD. — The history of African-American women in the US Senate is a short one. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois was elected to the body in 1992, and served one term there before losing reelection.

The anti–Donald Trump movement seemed to hit its peak over the past week when Trump rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich appeared to team up against the Republican frontrunner.

Unfortunately for #NeverTrump, the team-up didn’t seem to matter much on Tuesday as Trump swept the night’s East Coast primaries. And the internet took notice:

The Northeast is well-known terrain to the American media, and in political terms it’s known above all else for being liberal. But when the Republican primary turned to New York last week, it delivered Trump his best state yet. He followed that up this evening with romps in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut.

The only majority he’s gotten so far came from New York — not Alabama or Mississippi — and the very Trumpiest country in the country so far is Staten Island, an affluent, leafy, fundamentally prosperous and suburban section of the northeastern megalopolis. This region of the country isn’t very friendly to Republicans, and Trump won’t carry it in November, but for the purposes of a GOP primary it’s his promised land.

Frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have long held the upper hand in their respective primaries — and today’s elections present each a big opportunity to jump even further ahead in the delegate count.

Five states are going to the polls, and they’re all in the Northeast or mid-Atlantic: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware. Polls close for all five states at 8 pm Eastern.

Why does the Democratic Party hate Joe Sestak so much?

He’s in line with the Democratic Party ideologically. He served as a Democrat in Congress for two terms. He’s a former Navy admiral (three stars!) and a former Clinton White House staffer. And when he ran for the Senate in Pennsylvania in 2010 — an objectively terrible year for Democrats — he lost to Pat Toomey by only 2 points.