Two weeks ago Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz seemed to have all the momentum in the presidential race. In Wisconsin, Sanders won the Democratic primary by 13 percentage points and Cruz won the GOP primary by the same margin.
But on Tuesday night the narrative changed once again. In landslide victories, Donald Trump won the New York GOP primary and Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary.
So what do the New York results mean for the 2016 election? Here are five key takeaways:
1. Sanders Ran a Poor Campaign
Bernie Sanders squandered a great opportunity to win New York.
He entered the Empire State on a roll after winning seven out of eight nominating contests. He also enjoyed a large fund-raising advantage over Clinton, outspending her two-to-one in television advertisements in New York. Moreover, as a native of Brooklyn, Sanders had just as much of a claim to the state as Clinton did.
But Sanders almost immediately blew his chances. First he gave what was widely seen as a disastrous interview to the New York Daily News editorial board. For a candidate who has made breaking up the big banks a central theme of his campaign, he displayed a remarkably poor grasp of basic financial and economic issues.
