Acela Tuesday Primary Live Updates 2016: Results From Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware And Rhode Island

UPDATE: 10:55 p.m. EDT -- Hillary Clinton is projected to win Connecticut's Democratic primary, CBS News reported. The victory would give her four for the night, in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, compared to one win, in Rhode Island, for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

UPDATE: 10:10 p.m. EDT — Donald Trump called Tuesday "my biggest night" and assured voters he would beat Hillary Clinton in a November general election and then go on to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border once he makes it to the White House.

"I unify people," he assured the crowd after winning all five states voting Tuesday.

UPDATE: 9:42 p.m. EDT — Results from the Connecticut Democratic primary remain too close to call with 46 percent reporting. Bernie Sanders was ahead of Hillary Clinton 50-48 percent in the state. Clinton was the projected winner in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, while Sanders was the projected winner in Rhode Island. In the GOP race, Donald Trump was the projected winner in all five states.

UPDATE: 9:24 p.m. EDT — Hillary Clinton promised to keep the nation out of another costly ground war in the Middle East while pushing for more green energy and civil rights for workers, women and people with disabilities. She also warned that Republicans would discriminate against hardworking Americans and continue to deny that climate change exists as a crowd of supporters booed.

"That is how progress is made," Clinton said in a victory speech that seemed to take repeated jabs at Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. "We have to be both dreamers and doers."

UPDATE: 9:18 p.m. EDT — Bernie Sanders is the projected winner in the Rhode Island Democratic primary. Sanders picked up his first win of the night after he told supporters he was the best candidate to deliver the White House to Democrats in a November general election.

UPDATE: 8:50 p.m. EDT — Hillary Clinton is the projected winner in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. That means she has so far won three out of the five contests up for grabs Tuesday.

UPDATE: 8:43 p.m. EDT — Hillary Clinton is the projected winner in the Delaware Democratic primary. She stands to win 31 delegates in the winner-take-all contest.

UPDATE: 8:30 p.m. EDT — Donald Trump is the projected winner in Rhode Island and Delaware, meaning he won all of the five states that voted in Tuesday's Republican primaries.

UPDATE: 8:17 p.m. EDT — Bernie Sanders is staying in the race. Sanders told supporters in West Virginia Tuesday that he had gone from a “fringe campaign not to be taken seriously” by the media to a potential contender for the White House in November.

"We have won over 1,200 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, and in the last several weeks, the national polls, they don't show us 60 points down," Sanders said. "A few of them actually have us ahead or a few points down."

Within minutes of the polls closing Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was declared the projected winner of the Maryland Democratic primary. Results in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware were still too close to call.

Sanders is trailing far behind Clinton in the delegate count.

UPDATE: 8:10 p.m. EDT — Ted Cruz told supporters in Indiana Tuesday night that Donald Trump was Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick.

"Donald and Hillary, they are flip sides of the same coin," Cruz said, addressing supporters just minutes before the polls closed in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland and Rhode Island. Trump was immediately declared the projected winner in every state but Rhode Island or Delaware, where exit poll data was limited.

Cruz could possibly stop Trump from winning the necessary number of delegates to cinch the GOP nomination outright during the Republican convention in June if he wins Indiana on May 3.

"Tonight this campaign moves back to Indiana and Nebraska and North Dakota and Washington and Montana and California,” Cruz said during his speech.

UPDATE: 8:01 p.m. EDT — Republican Donald Trump is the projected winner in Connecticut, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Democrat Hillary Clinton is the projected winner in Maryland.

UPDATE: 7:45 p.m. EDT — Former presidential candidate Marco Rubio said he isn’t paying attention to Tuesday’s primary contests. Rubio, who represents Florida in the Senate, told CNN’s Manu Raju Tuesday that he isn’t really paying attention to the 2016 race now that he is no longer running.

"I'm really not following them. There are like five states, right?” Rubio said of Tuesday’s contests.

Rubio said he also doesn’t expect his name to come up if the GOP convention becomes a fight to keep Donald Trump from becoming the nominee.

"I've spent no time thinking about that," he said.

UPDATE: 7:20 p.m. EDT — If Hillary Clinton wins all five states up for grabs Tuesday, Bernie Sanders will have a “virtually impossible” path to the Democratic nomination, according to Clinton’s campaign.

"Right now, Hillary Clinton with five contests tonight which we’re working very hard to win," chief pollster and strategist Joel Benenson told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." "We believe we are going to expand our lead in pledged delegates."

He continued, "It’s going to, you know, make it virtually impossible for Senator Sanders to catch us after this as the nominee."

With superdelegates included, Clinton has 1,944 delegates to 1,192 for Sanders. That gives her 82 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to cinch the Democratic presidential nomination.

UPDATE: 7:01 p.m. EDT — Early exit polls show Donald Trump could do very well Tuesday in five primary contests across the northeast. In Pennsylvania, 36 percent of Republican voters are "excited" about the possibility of a Trump administration, while 93 percent of Pennsylvania Republican voters are "worried" about the economy, the Oregonian reported.

UPDATE: 6:46 p.m. EDT — Donna Edwards is running to become the only black woman in the U.S. Senate. The Maryland Democrat, now a House member, would become only the second black woman to serve in the chamber if she wins her primary and then the general election.

Edwards is running against fellow Rep. Chris Van Hollen in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. They are competing to replace the retiring Barbara A. Mikulski, the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history.

Edwards’ campaign sought a court order Tuesday to keep late-opening Baltimore polling sites open past the 8 p.m. EDT closing time, the Baltimore Sun reported. The complaint alleges that because many polling locations in the city opened as much as an hour late, they should remain open until 10 p.m. EDT.

The complaint alleges that a failure to extend the hours would “threaten to prevent thousands of eligible residents from effectively exercising their right to vote in violation of federal and state law.”

Edwards is a former community activist and a single mother. The first black woman in the Senate, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, served one term from 1993 to 1999.

UPDATE: 6:30 p.m. EDT — Dr. Ben Carson, who at one point was the leading Republican presidential candidate in polls before he got few actual votes and exited the race, said Tuesday U.S. currency is nearly worthless and that adding Harriet Tubman’s image to the front of the $20 bill would be an insult to her legacy as an abolitionist.

“Harriet Tubman would likely be turning over in her grave if she knew she would be the new face of American debt slavery. She would revile the cheap trick being pulled on African Americans in getting them to support this nearly bankrupt symbol of American debt. It is amazing how, just as the currency dwindles down to near worthlessness — all of a sudden the government wants to invoke Harriet Tubman as a symbol on the twenty dollar bill,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Independent Journal Review.

He went on: “The cynical pandering to race, and the exploitation of a real American hero in order to mask the highway robbery being enacted by the Fed and the U.S. government is nothing short of a disgrace. It is one thing if they want to rob the American people blind, but quite another to do it in the name of a true freedom fighter. ”

The Obama administration announced last week Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the bill.

UPDATE: 6:10 p.m. EDT — Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said time has run out for Bernie Sanders to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Reid said he wasn’t suggesting Sanders should drop out, but asked whether he thought he had a path forward, Reid did not hesitate. "No, I do not," he told reporters Tuesday at his weekly press conference.

The Nevada Democrat said Sanders is a good person who "has run a campaign that I think we've all recognized has been unique and powerful, and I think Bernie should do what he wants to do."

UPDATE: 5:52 p.m. EDT — Labor groups are organizing against Donald Trump to ensure their blue-collar members don’t vote for the popular Republican, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday.

The AFL-CIO plans to run digital attack ads against Trump and increase its door-knocking campaign to inform members about why they shouldn’t vote for the Republican candidate. The Service Employees International Union, which has endorsed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, is reaching out to members by phone to turn out Democratic supporters.

“Trump has some appeal at this point, there’s no question about that,” Steve Rosenthal, former political director for AFL-CIO, told the Guardian. “But when you cut through it and begin to focus on his record – from his talk about trade agreements, to manufacturing abroad to offshoring jobs – Donald Trump is not going to appeal to union members.”

Unions are considered Democratic voting machines. But in 2012, about 40 percent of union members voters for Republican Mitt Romney.

Trump has won over many working-class voters by promising to keep jobs in the U.S. and limit end some trade deals with China and other nations.

UPDATE: 5:32 p.m. EDT — Baltimore’s election director forgot to send "I Voted" stickers to the city's 296 precincts.

“I’ll take the blame for that,” Armstead B.C. Jones Sr., the election director, told the Baltimore Sun. “I know [the stickers are] important to me, and important to the voters, but I have other things of importance to deal with: making sure people can vote."

Jones said some polling places opened “10 to 15 minutes late” and at least one opened to voters about an hour late amid confusion over how to use the voting machines.

UPDATE: 5:20 p.m. EDT — Maryland voters returned to paper ballots Tuesday after years of touch-screen voting. Some poll workers had problems getting the ballots into scanning machines, but otherwise the switch went off smoothly, the Baltimore Sun reported.

UPDATE: 5:05 p.m. EDT — Black voters in Connecticut could help Hillary Clinton win the state, according to a recent poll. The PPP poll released Monday had Clinton with a narrow lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, "thanks in large part to a 63/24 advantage among African Americans," Patch.com reported.

UPDATE: 4:45 p.m. EDT — John Fluharty, former executive director of the Delaware Republican Committee, predicts Donald Trump will win the state. "I expect that along the lines of polling numbers we saw last week, Trump is going to be over 50 [percent]," he told local media.

Some Trump supporters in the state said they were backing the Donald because of his business skills. "May Donald Trump win," 51-year-old Wanada Bowers told the News Journal outside a polling center. She said she was worried about the nation's path.

Matt Fox, who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but backed Mitt Romney four years later, said he was going to vote for Trump.

"I seen Donald Trump at the rally the other day, and it was a pretty cool experience, especially for little small Harrington," Fox, 26, said. "I always kind of liked him from the beginning, so I just came out and vote."

UPDATE: 4:14 p.m. EDT — A home identified as being located in Western Pennsylvania all but summed up the state's Republican polling, which shows Donald Trump lopsidedly leading his rival candidates.

The state has 17 delegates who will be awarded to its primary winner, but there are an additional 54 delegates, known as unbound delegates, and it's uncertain where they may end up based on how a voter casts his or her ballots. Around 25 percent of them have indicated they will throw their support behind Trump, CNN reported. Twenty percent are expected to support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, 11 percent are undecided, and none are expected to back Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

UPDATE: 3:32 p.m. EDT — The Bernie Sanders campaign Tuesday released a letter to his supporters indicating his commitment to seeing his candidacy through until the very end, but in doing so he may have taken a page from Donald Trump's political playbook. The letter, which takes shots at Hillary Clinton's campaign for doing the same at Sanders', quickly pivots in a different direction:

"Let me be clear," the letter says in part before continuing: "there is one candidate in this Democratic primary who Donald Trump said would make a 'great president,' and it's not Bernie Sanders. The letter concludes with a photo of Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton with big smiles on their faces while attending Trump's wedding.

It also makes an appeal to his supporters for donations that the letter says would mean "you are still with Bernie Sanders and believe that every vote and every delegate is an important declaration of support for the values we share."

The letter in its entirety follows:

UPDATE: 2:58 p.m. EDT — Voting in Connecticut on Tuesday has been smooth, with no major glitches reported, the Hartford Courant reported Tuesday. GOP front-runner Donald Trump is predicted to be the clear winner in the state, but on the Democratic side, it’s a close race between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, early polling showed.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and first lady Cathy Malloy voted at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday for the former secretary of state.

"I think this is a big day," Malloy said. "After today, she'll be well over 2,000 delegates and within a hair's breadth of the actual nomination, which will come in the not-too-distant future."

UPDATE: 2:20 p.m. EDT — Despite early problems in Baltimore primary voting, election director Armstead B.C. Jones Sr. said the process was going “as well as can be expected,” the Baltimore Sun reported. Some polling places opened up to 15 minutes late, he said, and one opened an hour late.

The city hired and trained more than 2,000 judges, but several hundred backed out. There was some confusion over how to use the new voting system.

“There is nothing I can do to control that,” Jones said. “2,000 election judges can make or break an election.”

Meanwhile, the “I Voted” stickers that are given to those who cast ballots in the state primary were absent at the city’s 296 precincts. “I know [the stickers are] important to me and important to the voters, but I have other things of importance to deal with: making sure people can vote,” Jones said.

UPDATE: 1:31 p.m. EDT — Some two-thirds of Rhode Island's polling places were closed Tuesday, leaving some voters "caught off guard," Think Progress reported. However, the mass closures follow state protocol for primaries, which historically have a low voter turnout.

“It’s been standard practice for Rhode Island to consolidate the number of polling places for the presidential primary,” John Marion, executive director of advocacy group Common Cause Rhode Island, told Think Progress. “But people’s responses have been different, because both the Democratic and Republican races are still hotly contested coming into Rhode Island, and that hasn’t been true in the recent past. So people have been caught off guard by the consolidation, and the fact that they might not be voting where they typically vote in November.”

Just 144 out of the state's 419 polling places were open Tuesday, and at least one local political analyst speculated that despite historical precedence, not enough had been done to alert voters to the few number of places to vote.

“I think the general public has no idea there’s going to be a lot fewer polling places come Tuesday,” Joe Fleming told local news outlet WPRI. “It could possibly cause a lot of confusion.”

UPDATE: 1:05 p.m. EDT — Bernie Sanders far outspent his Democratic rival in campaign ads ahead of Tuesday's primaries, NBC News reported Tuesday. The Vermont senator's campaign spent $4.6 million in advertising in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent $2.4 million, ad spending data from SMG Delta found.

On the Republican end, Donald Trump’s campaign spent some $1.3 million in Pennsylvania alone. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz reportedly spent $780,000 in the state, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich spent $194,000. As the Republican candidates look toward Indiana's primary next week, a movement to stop Trump has spent some $2.2 million dollars on advertising. Cruz has poured upwards of $2 million into that state.

UPDATE: 12:30 p.m. EDT — The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper announced Tuesday which presidential candidates it is formally endorsing. Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich added it to his list of U.S. newspapers supporting his run, while Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also got the newspaper's support.

The timing of the endorsements couldn't be better for the two candidates since Pennsylvania is casting its primary ballots Tuesday. The Inquirer did not immediately provide reasons for its endorsements.

Kasich was in Philadelphia campaigning Monday, including a brief stop at a local diner and engaging with patrons.

Clinton was expected to be in the City of Brotherly Love on Tuesday upon returning from Indiana, which is scheduled to vote in its own primary next week. She also spent a portion of Monday in Philadelphia.

UPDATE: 11:49 a.m. EDT — GOP front-runner Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday that Bernie Sanders “has been treated terribly by the Democrats” and encouraged him to “show them, and run as an independent.” The billionaire businessman's comments came as voting was underway in five states in critical primary contests. While Sanders has gathered significant support among young voters, he has trailed behind Hillary Clinton in the delegate count.

UPDATE: 11:17 a.m. EDT — Deray McKesson, a candidate for mayor of Baltimore, who was instrumental in the Black Lives Matter movement's inception, cast his vote Tuesday in the Maryland state primary.

It was unclear whom McKesson voted for, but in October of last year he posted an essay detailing his meeting with both Democratic candidates former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement.

Months later, after declaring his candidacy for Baltimore's top public office, McKesson hired the same firm responsible for the Sanders campaign's fundraising efforts.

Meanwhile, voter turnout in Maryland was expected to be high, with Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Clinton being favored to win in their respective parties.

UPDATE: 10:50 a.m. EDT — As Hillary Clinton hopes for big wins Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton headed to Indianapolis to campaign on his wife’s behalf. A crowd grew outside Clinton's campaign headquarters in the city, social media reports indicated, awaiting Bill Clinton’s arrival.

Indiana’s primary election is one week away. The leading Democratic presidential candidate is expected to spend Tuesday in northern Indiana speaking about manufacturing as she visits a steel company and a military assembly plant, local Fox 59 reported.

Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will head to the state for campaign rallies Wednesday at both Indiana University and Purdue University.

UPDATE: 10:16 a.m. EDT — Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey cast his vote Tuesday in the state primary for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Toomey told the Morning Call he thought Cruz had the best chance of winning a general election against Democrat Hillary Clinton, who will all but clinch her party's nomination if she wins the five states voting Tuesday.

"[Cruz is] a solid conservative," Toomey said outside his polling place in the town of Zionsville. "We don't agree on everything, but having served with him in the Senate, I know Ted pretty well, and I think he's got a real, real viable shot of beating Hillary Clinton in the fall."

Senator @PatToomey casts his vote for @tedcruz Says Cruz is a solid conservative. @69News #PAprimary #Election2016 pic.twitter.com/S4LTxuXr8C

— Rosa Duarte (@RosaDuarteTV) April 26, 2016

Toomey had previously endorsed Marco Rubio for president before the Florida senator dropped out of the primary race.

UPDATE: 9:58 a.m. EDT — Local media outlets reported a strong turnout in Providence, Rhode Island, where polling ahead of the state's primary showed a competitive Democratic race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The line at the Summit Commons spilled out of the building, as more than 200 people had turned up to vote within the first hour the polls were open, the Providence Journal reported.

UPDATE: 9:15 a.m. EDT — Asked whether he would name a woman as his running mate if he were voted the Democratic nominee, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said it was still too early, but he floated Elizabeth Warren’s name, Politico reported. Some have speculated that Warren, a progressive Massachusetts senator, could also be among former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's possible vice president picks.

"I'm not going to commit — you have to look at the best candidates you can," Sanders told MSNBC on Tuesday morning. "The women of this country, the people of this country, understand it would be a great idea to have a woman as vice president and something I would give very, very serious thought to."

While not committing to any particular individual, he cited Warren during a discussion on women qualified to be vice president.

"But I think, as you know, there are people in life today, Elizabeth Warren, I think, has been a real champion in standing up for working families, taking on Wall Street," he said. "There are other fantastic women who have been active in all kinds of fights who I think would make great vice presidential candidates."

UPDATE: 8:30 a.m. EDT — Candidates and outside groups spent nearly $14 million in advertising in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island ahead of Tuesday’s primary votes, Fox News reported. Much of that spending reportedly came from the Democratic candidates, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sanders told CNN Tuesday morning he remained hopeful he could grab the nomination despite trailing Clinton in the delegate count. Clinton is expected to do well in the Northeastern states set to vote Tuesday, and that could significantly widen her lead against the Vermont senator.

“It’s a narrow path, but we do have a path,” Sanders said. “We’re in this to the end.”

UPDATE: 7:50 a.m. EDT — Donald Trump has reached a milestone before learning his fate as voters head to presidential primary polling places Tuesday. The billionaire businessman has garnered the support of 50 percent of U.S. Republicans for the first time during this young election season. The news comes as Trump's rival candidates mount an attempt to prevent him from clinching the GOP presidential nomination.

The NBC News poll was determined through a series of interviews beginning last week with nearly 11,000 people, including more than 9,000 registered Republicans.

Before he likely learned the news of his increasing support, Trump took to Twitter to sound off on the teaming-up of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in an effort to keep as many delegates as possible from being awarded to the real estate mogul.

Meanwhile, Politico reported that Trump is rejecting his campaign's advice for him to behave more presidential. Last week, one of Trump's campaign officials announced the candidate had been acting a certain way earlier in the primary season but would now become more like a traditional presidential candidate.

UPDATE: 7:25 a.m. EDT — Polls have opened in all five states set to vote Tuesday in Republican and Democratic primaries. GOP front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton are hoping the events in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island will help them solidify their lead in the polls.

Original story:

It’s kind of Super Tuesday, again, as voters in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island head to the polls to decide whom they want as their presidential candidates in the general election. Although clear front-runners already have been established in terms of both the Republican and the Democratic nominations, these primary elections are considered crucial in the fight for the remaining delegates at the party conventions to be conducted this summer.

On the GOP side, billionaire businessman Donald Trump is hoping the so-called Acela primaries (named for the Amtrak high-speed rail service in the U.S. Northeast), with their 172 delegates at stake, will help increase his lead over U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. On the Democratic side, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is hoping the elections, with their 384 delegates at stake, will help widen her lead over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Trump and Clinton hold leads in opinion polling in the five states, as noted by Patch.

All eyes in the Democratic Party will be on Pennsylvania, with 189 delegates at stake, and Maryland, with 95, excluding superdelegates in both cases. Clinton reportedly holds strong leads in both states, and Sanders could use a victory or victories to provide momentum for his struggling campaign.

Ahead of the Democratic primaries Tuesday, Clinton is leading Sanders in convention delegates, 1,428 to 1,153, again excluding superdelegates. Among the party’s superdelegates, 516 have said they would back Clinton and 39 have said they would support Sanders. The eventual nominee needs 2,382 delegates to win.

Meanwhile, Trump goes into the Republican elections with 845 delegates, followed by Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 148. Cruz and Kasich have said they are now working together in an attempt to block Trump from obtaining the 1,237 delegates he requires to avoid a contested convention.

None of the current candidates in either party have expressed any intention to drop out of the presidential race before every state has voted.