Trump, Clinton Win Pennsylvania Primary

In what had come to seem like a foregone conclusion, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been named the winners in the Pennsylvania primaries, according to CNN and the Associated Press.

Clinton addressed supporters at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Pennsylvania politicians began to weigh in:

“Hillary Clinton has a won a decisive and substantial victory in Pennsylvania that will propel her to the Democratic nomination and the presidency,” said Senator Bob Casey. “She campaigned hard throughout the Commonwealth and I was pleased to be able to join her, President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton on multiple occasions during the last week. Beginning in Iowa, the primary process has energized our party and made clear what’s at stake in this election. As President, Hillary Clinton will advance an agenda that raises incomes for middle class families, invests in early education for our children and deals with threats like ISIS. We don’t know who the Republicans will nominate, but the candidates running in the Republican primary are running on an extreme agenda that will take our nation backwards.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s victory in the Republican contests here, and in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Rhode Island sparked vitriol at the GOP establishment’s redoubled efforts to deny him the nomination.

“The Republican Party’s effort to ‘stop Trump’ seems to be as successful as their efforts to pass a budget in Washington or replace Obamacare,” said Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org. “It is now clear that the party is on the path to nominating a candidate whose campaign has been built on racism, immigrant-bashing, woman-bashing, and hateful rhetoric — and who has incited violence and seeks only to divide us as a nation. … Simply put, Donald Trump is a bigoted bully whose violent authoritarian vision puts core American values and security at risk. This is a five-alarm threat to our democracy.

Bernie Sanders supporters, meanwhile, focused not on their candidate’s defeat, but on the progressive gains his campaign has fostered.

“When Bernie Sanders declared that he would run for president, nobody ever predicted that we’d be here in Pennsylvania in late April of 2016 casting a meaningful vote in a presidential primary,” said Brandon Evans director of Pennsylvania Working Families. “Bernie has given voice to a real and powerful political revolution that only continues to grow as the primary process continues. He’s given hope to countless Americans that they can vote for someone who stands for an economy and a democracy that work for all of us — not just the wealthy and well-connected.”

“Our work here in Pennsylvania doesn’t stop with the presidential primary; a true political revolution doesn’t stop at the top of the ticket. If we want to see the kind of change that Bernie Sanders talks about, we need to elect strong progressives at every level — local and statewide.”