Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had resounding victories in the New York state primary on Tuesday night, with both races being called not long after they finished.

The Daily Orange interviewed Kristi Andersen, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, via email; Christopher Faricy, an assistant professor of political science, via email; and Shana Gadarian, an assistant professor of political science, over the phone, about the primary results and what it means for the rest of the election.

The Daily Orange: The exit polls showed that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was actually a lot closer than the final polling suggests. What are some reasons that something like this could happen, and what might it be an indication of?

Kristi Andersen: The exit polls try to sample likely voters. Generally pollsters use voting history as a way of calculating likelihood of voting. But I suspect that many of the Sanders voters were not frequent or habitual voters, so that might explain a difference. But I would note that the margin of Clinton’s victory was just about what the Marist and other polls picked up prior to Tuesday.

Christopher Faricy: Exit polls are designed to explain the reasons for why people voted not to predict election outcomes. After all the actual election results usually come in pretty quickly after the polls close.

Shana Gadarian: My guess is that the candidates kind of fell within the margin of error. They actually performed pretty close to what the poll says … To the extent that there are differences when politicians over-perform and under-perform, that’s usually about turnout. Saying that you like someone on a poll is different than actually being registered to vote.

The D.O.: Hillary Clinton was quite successful in Onondaga County. Would that be considered a surprise?

K.A.: No. She does well among African-Americans, among other things. She also spent time in central New York and in Onondaga County during Bill Clinton’s presidency and her time as a New York State Senator — vacationing in Skaneateles, going to the State Fair, etc.

C.F.: Only a surprise in that she outperformed the polls throughout the state, including here. There were a large number of college students who voted for Sanders but it was not enough to overcome Clinton’s support among black voters and more moderate Democrats.

S.G.: Usually we don’t know ahead of time with enough detail by the county to know what our expectations are … So you want to think about the demographics of the people that are favoring Sanders versus Clinton in other exit polls. So we’re saying Clinton is winning among voters 35 and over … she’s winning really big among African-American voters, among Latino voters. Sanders has the edge on younger voters and white liberals.

The D.O.: Is there any future significance for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) doing so badly in New York? Obviously there wasn’t a high expectation for him, but does this loss really hurt his future chances?

K.A.: Yes, this probably does damage Cruz’s chances, small as they are. It’s not surprising that (Ohio Gov. John) Kasich would outperform Cruz in New York, however, as Republicans here are less conservative than in the states where Cruz has done well.

C.F.: The demographic obstacles that Cruz faced in New York will be repeated next Tuesday when other Northeastern states go to vote. In particular, these states have fewer evangelical and very conservative Republican voters that form Cruz’s base.

S.G.: Primaries are partially about meeting and beating expectations, which is extremely hard when you’re the front-runner. When you’re not expected to do well and you don’t do well, then you can say, “Well, I’m not in a worse position.” Not having gotten any delegates makes the rest of the argument that he’s making about getting to the convention a little bit more difficult.

The D.O.: As a whole, what does this mean for the winners going forward? How important was the New York primary, and what do these blowouts signify?

K.A.: The New York results make Trump look pretty inevitable, though I’m still hoping for the first contested Republican convention since 1948. As for the Democrats, Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight had calculated that Sanders needed to win New York by about nine pledged delegates to maintain the possibility of winning the nomination; instead he lost New York State by about 30 delegates. So these results seem to confirm the likelihood of Clinton’s nomination.

C.F.: Clinton moves closer to locking up the Democratic nomination, especially if the voting is this lopsided in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Trump increases his odds of getting to the magic delegate number of 1,237, which also decreases the probability of a brokered convention.

S.G.: In terms of yesterday, Clinton and Trump were the front-runners and today they still are the front-runners, that much hasn’t changed. I think it still seems like on the Republican side, there’s not going to be a decisive winner by the convention … And I don’t think if it gets to a contested convention that it actually benefits Trump. On the Democratic side it becomes clearer as Clinton’s lead becomes bigger in pledged delegates. And then the kind of states that they’re going to are more beneficial to the kinds of voters that she’s picking up in other states.

Published on April 20, 2016 at 10:01 pm

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