Democrats: Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders

• 2,383: Number of delegates needed to win the nomination
• 291: Delegates up for grabs in New York state primary on April 19.
• 462: Delegates up for grabs in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania on April 26.
• Read Joanna Slater’s report from primary night: Trump, Clinton victories in N.Y. galvanize flagging campaigns

The Democratic leadership contest to decide who will be on the presidential ticket in November comes down to delegates and math. The candidate who wins 2,383 – or more than 50 per cent of the total delegates who will attend the party's national convention in Philadelphia in July – becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.

Front-runner Hillary Clinton continues to hold a grip of the delegates lead and is nearing the 2,383 magic number. Her win in the New York state primary – and the 16-point popular vote margin – only adds to her total.

Democratic Party contests during the presidential nominating process award delegates based on a proportional system depending on how many votes each candidate receives in a state contest.

That rule and the role of superdelegates – the estimated 712 party elites who are largely behind Ms. Clinton, according to Associated Press analysis – put Bernie Sanders at a huge disadvantage.

The prospect of him overtaking Ms. Clinton would involve lop-sided Sanders campaign wins in upcoming contests – and, more importantly, a major shift of superdelegates to his column.

Republicans: Donald Trump versus The Rest

• 1,237: Number of delegates needed to win the nomination
• 95: Delegates up for grabs in New York state primary on April 19.
• 172: Delegates up for grabs in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania on April 26.
• Read Joanna Slater’s report from primary night: Trump, Clinton victories in N.Y. galvanize flagging campaigns

The Republican leadership contest is marked by more uncertainty than the Democratic race.

The question for weeks has been whether any Republican candidate will be able to lock down 1,237 delegates – or 50 per cent plus one of the total delegates attending the party convention in July in Cleveland – by the time contests wrap up on the Republican side on June 7.

The New York state primary gives front-runner Donald Trump a major boost and sets him up nicely for upcoming contests. Mr. Trump was never going to lose his home state primary. But the question was: What margin would he win by?

Republican Party rules vary from state to state when it comes to how delegates are awarded in the presidential nominating process. In the case of New York, rules allow a candidate who wins more than 50 per cent of the votes in a congressional district to sweep all the delegates. The Trump campaign's goal was to win the overwhelming majority of the state's 27 districts.

Mr. Trump won just over 60 per cent of the vote across the state and crossed the 50 per cent threshold to sweep delegates in an overwhelming majority of the 27 congressional districts.

As of Wednesday morning, he had 89 of the 95 delegates up for grabs, according to Associated Press. That kind of resounding delegate haul is what many experts said he needed in order to stay on the path to the Republican presidential nomination and avoid a contested convention.

For the Trump campaign's rivals, blocking the real-estate billionaire's path to the Republican presidential nomination just got a lot harder – and upcoming contests will test the anti-Trump movement.

ANALYSIS

Trump’s victory leads Republicans into uncharted waters

Three surviving candidates are heading to Pennsylvania this morning after Tuesday night’s bruising primary, writes David Shribman

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The Republican and Democratic leadership contests head to a slew of northeastern states – with the biggest prize being the Rust Belt state of Pennsylvania. After those five contests on April 26, the next big day rolls around on June 7.

That is basically the last day of the presidential nominating process and California is the exclamation mark, with its huge number of delegates up for grabs.

Why upcoming contests give Hillary Clinton the edge

One of the reasons the New York state primary win is so huge for the Clinton campaign is that going in to the April 19 primary Ms. Clinton had lost seven straight contests. Her last win was a resounding victory in Arizona almost a month ago.

Ever since then, Mr. Sanders has been dominant.

The upcoming northeastern contests on April 26 are favourable terrain to the Clinton camp. Polling is limited is several of those states, but the signs in Pennsylvania and Maryland point to Clinton wins, according to analysis by pollster Nate Silver on the site FiveThirtyEight.com.

For the Sanders campaign – if winning the overall battle for delegates is increasingly improbable – the question is: What is the rationale for staying the race?

Money is a key factor.

The Sanders campaign raised $109-million (U.S.) in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the Clinton campaign's $75-million. In other words, so long as there are enthusiastic supporters and money to organize campaign rallies, fund travel and get-out-the-vote operations, Mr. Sanders will likely stay in the race until the very end in June.

Why upcoming contests give Trump the edge (but don't rule out Cruz)

On the Republican side, front-runner Donald Trump also breaks out of a slump that saw him lose contests in Utah and Wisconsin. The April 5 Wisconsin loss was a strong rebuke of the Trump brand and an endorsement of his rival Ted Cruz across a spectrum of conservative Republican voters – from the very conservative to the somewhat conservative.

The upcoming contests on April 26 in the northeastern states favour the Trump campaign. As in the case of the Clinton campaign, there are strong signs in the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania that Mr. Trump will win, according to analysis by pollster Nate Silver on the site FiveThirtyEight.com.

There is, however, the kind of loophole that the Cruz campaign has become adept at exploiting.

In the case of Pennsylvania, arcane Republican rules state that 54 of the state's 71 delegates must be elected at the congressional district level and that they are free to vote as they please on the first ballot at the Republican national convention in July in Cleveland when the vast majority of delegates (95 per cent) are pledged and required to vote for a particular candidate.

The Cruz campaign's strategy is to make sure that its supporters are elected as delegates in Pennsylvania. That could mean that Mr. Cruz loses the Pennsylvania primary, but walks away with the most delegates who will back him in Cleveland.

It's this kind of Cruz savvy at state-level meeting where delegates are chosen that is angering Mr. Trump and giving the Cruz campaign hope. "The system is rigged, it's crooked," Mr. Trump said in a Fox News interview leading up to the New York state primary.

CONTESTED CONVENTION

Chaos and acrimony: eight scenarios in the Republican race and how Trump can be derailed

Here are eight possible scenarios in the Republican leadership race. Read what the experts say and choose which scenario you think is most likely

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