Entire 2016 Field Descends On New York City Ahead Of Primary
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- With days to go before New York's primary, the entire presidential field is descending on New York City on Thursday.
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will hold a debate in Brooklyn, their first in more than a month.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump will attend a Suffolk GOP fundraiser on Long Island.
Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich are also all expected at the Republican Committee's annual gala in Midtown before the latter two candidates make appearances on late night shows.
Kasich will also hold a news conference Thursday afternoon in Jericho on Long Island.
While the White House hopefuls have been blanketing New York state for several days, holding rallies and mingling at local hangouts, Thursday's events are among the last high-profile opportunities they'll have to appeal to voters.
Front-runners Clinton and Trump hope the state can propel them past stubborn challengers and into the general election. Preference polls show Clinton and Trump leading their respective contests heading into Tuesday's primary.
Clinton spent eight years as a New York senator. Trump is a Queens native, built his fortune in New York's real estate market and lives in an opulent Manhattan high-rise bearing his name.
Sanders, a Vermont senator who was born in Brooklyn, has also been touting his local roots as he seeks to upset Clinton in New York. While Sanders is on a winning streak in primaries and caucuses, he desperately needs a big victory in New York if he hopes to cut into Clinton's delegate lead and slow her march to the nomination.
Trump hopes New York marks an end to the worst period of his candidacy, a stretch that raised new questions about his policy chops and revealed his campaign's lack of preparedness for a potential delegate fight if the GOP race heads to a contested convention. A big victory in New York could preserve his ability to clinch the nomination before the convention.
Cruz has been cutting into Trump's delegate lead and working feverishly to court the delegates who would determine the race at the July convention.
But New York hasn't been friendly territory for the Texas senator. Even as he's tried to embrace East Coast culture, including making matzo with children in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, he's been dogged by his earlier criticism of Trump's "New York values'' and had to cancel an event at a school because students threatened to walk out.
Seeking to lower expectations, Cruz said Wednesday that if Trump doesn't get more than 50 percent of the vote in his home state, "that's widely going to be seen as a crushing loss.''
Still, Cruz is looking for opportunities to pick off some delegates both upstate and in the Bronx and Brooklyn.
He was participating in an MSNBC town hall in Buffalo before heading back to New York City for the state party gala and his first appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.''
Kasich also sees areas where he could pick up delegates in New York. Kasich is eyeing congressional districts in the Albany and Syracuse areas, where he's arguing that he's the only Republican left in the race who could defeat Clinton in a fall campaign.
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