Fresh off resounding victories in Wisconsin by Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the presidential campaign shifted Wednesday to New York, where both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are trying to seize on their home-state advantage to reverse recent setbacks.
Trump and Clinton, who still maintain wide delegate leads in the Republican and Democratic nominating contests, will be working furiously to win New York to blunt the momentum of their opponents, who are devoting significant resources to the delegate-rich state before its April 19 primary.
The pressure is perhaps greatest for Trump, who is enduring the most challenging stretch of his insurgent candidacy and who is holding one of his rallies in Bethpage, Long Island, on Wednesday night, which is expected to draw up to 10,000 people. A week of damaging questions about his treatment of women and knowledge of policy was capped Tuesday by a stinging double-digit defeat in Wisconsin, emboldening the Stop Trump movement within the Republican Party.
"The shine is off and the Donald's impermeable Teflon coating has finally been pierced," said Ryan Williams, a Republican political consultant and former spokesman for Mitt Romney. "The sheer magnitude of the margin of Trump's humiliating loss shows that his trail of outrageous comments is finally catching up with him."
Trump is planning to respond to the onslaught of negative attention with a series of more polished policy speeches and endorsements from Republican county chairmen in New York. But in a sign of what his campaign will bring to the media-saturated New York metropolitan region, the police on Long Island will be bracing for potential violence as throngs of protesters are also planning to greet Trump with "No Hate in Our State" signs at his rally.
"We have listened to him disparage his fellow Republican candidates, denigrate the Democratic candidates, belittle the press and deprecate all who disagree with him," the Long Island Progressive Coalition wrote in a Facebook post organizing the protest. "On this day we will come together, and say no to his thirst for hatred, and violence."
New York should be friendly terrain for Trump, but Cruz is hoping conservative voters will forgive his disparaging remarks about "New York values" and fall behind him as he courts the Stop Trump movement by arguing he is a viable alternative who can win important states. The Texas senator will not be too far from Trump on Wednesday as he heads to the Bronx for a meet-and-greet event at a Latino restaurant, courting voters in a borough where Hispanic evangelicals are a potent political force.
Trump stayed off Twitter and morning talk shows in the wake of his Wisconsin defeat, but his frustration was palpable in a statement the campaign released overnight assailing the millions of dollars in attack ads levied at him. His spokeswoman called Cruz "Lyin' Ted" and described him as a "Trojan horse" who was being used by the Republican establishment to steal the nomination from Trump.
As Trump tries to regain his footing, drama within the campaign could be percolating. Trump has shrugged off reports of internal strife, but calls to fire his campaign manager, who is facing battery charges, could grow if Cruz's team continues to outmaneuver them in the hunt for state delegates across the country. The loss in Wisconsin means that it is increasingly likely that Trump will need to be ready for a fight at the convention in Cleveland starting July 18 unless he pulls off a string of big victories in coming states.
"The threat of Trump using Wisconsin as a potential springboard to the nomination probably focused the minds of anti-Trump voters in Wisconsin, and many strategically voted for Cruz as a way to block Trump," said Kyle D. Kondik, the director of communications at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "The chances of a contested convention just went up, but Trump still has a chance to finish April strong."
On the Democratic side, Clinton is also looking to finish the month on a better note after losing six of the past seven states to Sanders. With Wisconsin behind them, both candidates were headed to Pennsylvania, one of five states holding primaries April 26. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found Clinton holding a 6-point lead among likely Democratic voters in the state.
Despite his recent gains, Sanders faces a challenge when it comes to erasing Clinton's lead of more than 200 pledged delegates. Math is not the only concern, however, as increased scrutiny this week appeared to lay bare some gaps in the Vermont senator's knowledge of policy.
In an interview in New York with the The Daily News' editorial board, Sanders struggled to explain how he would carry out his Wall Street reform plans, and he was vague when asked about the economic ramifications of thousands of bankers losing their jobs.
Clinton, who has clashed repeatedly with Sanders over financial regulation, took notice of her rival's apparent blunder in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday and suggested that he was not prepared to be president.
"Well, I think he hadn't done his homework," Clinton said. "He'd been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn't really studied or understood, and that does raise a lot of questions."