Trump, Clinton hold double-digit leads in New York

Dylan Stableford
·Senior Writer

The frontrunners maintain large leads heading into their respective New York primaries next week, recent polls show. (Photos: Matt Rourke/AP; Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

One week ahead of the New York presidential primary, Republican and Democratic frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton each hold double-digit leads in the Empire State, three new polls show.

According to the results of a NY1/Baruch College poll released Monday, Trump has a commanding 43-point lead in his home state, with 60 percent support among likely GOP primary voters compared to just 17 percent for Ohio Gov. John Kasich and 14 percent for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

A new NBC/WSJ/Marist survey also released Monday shows the real estate mogul leading Kasich by 33 points (54 percent to 21 percent) and Cruz (18 percent) by 36. A Monmouth University poll released last week had Trump (52 percent) holding a 27-point lead over Kasich (25 percent) and a 35-point lead over Cruz.

SLIDESHOW – The battle for New York >>>

On the Democratic side, things are a bit tighter. According to the NY1/Baruch College poll, Clinton leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 13 points (50 percent to 37 percent) among likely primary voters. The NBC/WSJ/Marist survey shows the former secretary of state with a 14-point advantage (55 percent to 41 percent) over the self-described democratic socialist. And a Monmouth poll released Monday had Clinton ahead of Sanders by 12 points (51 percent to 39 percent).

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For the Democrats, there are 291 delegates up for grabs in the New York primary. For Republicans, 95 delegates are at stake.

Clinton — who has a huge lead in the delegate count — is looking to halt the momentum currently propelling Sanders, who has won eight of the past nine Democratic contests. Trump, meanwhile, is looking to regain some of his. The brash billionaire lost Wisconsin’s April 5 Republican primary to Cruz, who also grabbed all 13 delegates at Colorado’s GOP convention over the weekend — a result that Trump called “crooked.”

“I’ve gotten millions … more votes than Cruz, and I’ve gotten hundreds of delegates more, and we keep fighting, fighting, fighting, and then you have a Colorado where they just get all of these delegates,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday. “There was no voting. I didn’t go out there to make a speech or anything.”

Trump accused the Cruz campaign of buying delegates.

“They offer them trips — they offer them all sorts of things, and you’re allowed to do that,” he said. “I mean, you’re allowed to offer trips, and you can buy all these votes. What kind of a system is this?

“It’s a rigged, disgusting, dirty system,” Trump said at a rally in Albany. “It’s a fix!”