Quotes and highlights from Tuesday's primary races
Trump sweeps all 5 states, Clinton scores 4, Sanders wins 1
The results of Tuesday's five-state race propel front-runners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump closer to the Democratic and Republican nominations. All of the remaining presidential hopefuls focused on that stiff competition during their primary night speeches.
Donald Trump
If you thought Trump had become more presidential-sounding — as many observers have suggested in the past week — think again. Trump, who won all five primaries Tuesday, railed against those presumptions during his victory speech, telling the crowd of supporters gathered at his New York City headquarters that he will continue to be himself.
He spent a large portion of his speech blasting Clinton, saying she wouldn't have the "strength" or "stamina" to be president and claiming that he would easily beat her in a general election. "I'll do far more for women than Hillary Clinton will ever do," Trump said.
He finished with his most controversial statement of the evening, claiming that Clinton wouldn't get five percent of the vote in a general election if she were a man. And with that remark, he left the podium.
Bernie Sanders
Sanders wasn't in any of the five states voting Tuesday evening. He was already looking ahead to West Virginia, where he held a large rally in Huntington. That state will be holding its primary two weeks from now on May 10.
Sanders gave his traditional stump speech — berating millionaires, Wall Street, drug companies and the media. "[The media] do not deal with the realities of our lives in a way that we need to be discussing," he told his supporters.
It's an uphill battle for Sanders. After Tuesday's vote, Sanders' team planned to reassess his bid, but said he will stay in the race until the Democratic convention in July.
Ted Cruz
Early on in Cruz's speech to supporters in Indiana, he admitted that Trump would probably have a good night, saying that the media would have "heart palpations" in return.
Cruz was right — Trump swept all five states. U.S. media projected that Cruz wouldn't get a single delegate from any of the five contests.
Despite this, Cruz reiterated he is still in the race. To demonstrate this, he used a bizarre demonstration that had one of his campaign team members up on a ladder measuring the height of a basketball net — it was his attempt at mimicking this scene from the 1986 Gene Hackman basketball film, Hoosiers, set in Indiana. The scene was shot in the gym where Cruz, channeling Hackman's role of inspirational coach, was speaking.
Cruz spent much of the speech drawing comparisons between the policies of Clinton and Trump, even jokingly speculating that they may be running mates.
Hillary Clinton
Clinton was in an energized mood Tuesday evening. She had already been declared winner in three states — Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania — by the time she took the stage at her campaign rally in Philadelphia. She won her fourth, Connecticut, later in the evening.
She addressed criticisms that Trump had made about her playing the "woman card" in the campaign.
"Well, if fighting for women's health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in!" she said, to big cheers from her supporters.
Perhaps her most interesting comments were about Sanders. She commended Sanders and his campaign for working to keep Wall Street accountable. It shows how Clinton is trying to expand her base and appeal to Sanders' supporters.
