Clinton And Sanders Picking Up Speed Ahead of NY

The long-awaited New York primaries take place Tuesday, April 19. There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the state, as former New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Brooklyn native and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and businessman and Queens native Donald Trump all have connections to the city. But with a number of races on the democratic side ahead of Tuesday's race, who will win the New York Democratic primary?

Sanders has proven he won't go down without a fight, having won seven states in a row. And now he is coming for New York. The state has a total of 291 delegates at stake for Democrats, and 164 of them are pledged, 84 are at-large but also pledged, and the remaining 44 are superdelegates. Sanders has increasingly made winning big a priority, as he needs to win as many delegates as possible in order to stay in the race, much less secure the nomination. Leading into New York, polls have put Clinton in the lead with 53 percent to Sanders' 43 percent, although the Sanders campaign is not so quick to let those numbers fool you just yet.

While Clinton is certainly ahead in New York just a day before the state's primary, she won't necessarily take the state so easily. Sanders has been behind, and then won, in previous primaries — like in Michigan, where he was down by 25 points but then won the state. On Monday morning, Sanders spoke to NBC's Today and noted, "Those are the public polls. The bottom line is, let's look at the real poll tomorrow. Generally speaking, polling has underestimated how we do in elections."

Jeanne Zaino, a political scientist at Iona College, told Al Jazeera English, "It's critical on both sides. It's a must-win for Sanders and a must-win for Clinton." It's critical for both candidates, especially because it is a home turf battle between Brooklyn native Sanders and Clinton, who was senator of the state between 2001 and 2009 and currently lives in Chappaqua.

A Democratic candidate needs 2,383 delegates to secure the party's nomination ahead of the July convention, and Clinton is well on her way to collecting the numbers, with 1,289 pledged delegates, as well as 469 superdelegates having declared support for her. Sanders has a total of 1,045 delegates and 31 superdelegates. Clinton is expected to take a few more superdelegate votes with her after New York — notably, former President Bill Clinton, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter, who have all pledged their support for Clinton.

Though Clinton currently holds the lead against Sanders in public polls — a wide margin that doesn't seem to be narrowing — we can only wait to see who wins the state's support on Tuesday, and expect Sanders to fight hard.