Hillary Clinton is assured of winning more delegates than Bernie Sanders for the night after wins in Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, padding her overall big lead.
She’s now less than 300 delegates away from clinching the Democratic nomination – with the outcome of two states still to come.
Pennsylvania and Maryland were the two biggest delegate prizes on Tuesday.
In those states plus Delaware, Clinton will win at least 142 delegates. Sanders will take at least 66. Many remain to be allocated pending final vote tallies.
That means to date, Clinton now has 1,578 delegates based on primaries and caucuses, compared to 1,232 for Sanders.
When including superdelegates, or party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton has 2,097 compared to Sanders’ 1,271.
She’s now 88 percent of the way to reaching the 2,383 delegates needed to clinch.
Clinton now needs to win just 21 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates to hit 2,383.
Sanders won the Rhode Island primary. Voting results were still pending Tuesday in Connecticut.
With a five-state sweep on Tuesday, Donald Trump is staying on his narrow path to win the Republican nomination for president by the end of the primaries.
He has to keep winning to do it, and he has little room for error.
Trump padded his lead in the race for delegates, winning at least 82 of the 118 delegates up for grabs on Tuesday.
In Pennsylvania, Trump collected 17 delegates for winning the state. An additional 54 delegates are elected directly by voters – three in each congressional district. However, their names are listed on the ballot with no information about which presidential candidate they support.
The AP delegate count:
Trump: 927.
Ted Cruz: 559.
John Kasich: 148.
Needed to win: 1,237.
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