NEW YORK -- Front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton swept to victory in Tuesday's New York primary, with Trump bouncing back from a difficult stretch in the Republican contest and Clinton pushing closer to locking up the Democratic nomination.

With votes still being tallied, Trump claimed at least 89 of the 95 delegates at stake Tuesday and was likely to add to his tally in the remaining congressional districts, according to the state Republican Party's winner-take-most rules.

Early returns for New York showed Ohio Gov. John Kasich in second and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in a distant third.

Trump declared that it was "impossible" for his rivals to catch him.

Stepping out with his family to the brassy strains of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York," Trump claimed victory in a short statement at his Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, Trump Tower.

"We don't have much of a race anymore," he said. He peppered his remarks with more references to the economy and other policy proposals, reflecting the influence of a new team of advisers to his campaign.

"Our jobs are being sucked out of our states, they're being taken out of our country, and we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're going to stop it," Trump said.

Clinton's triumph padded the former secretary of state's delegate lead over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In a shift toward the general election, she made a direct appeal to Sanders' loyal supporters, telling them she believes "there is more that unites us than divides us."

Sanders has vowed to compete through all of the voting contests.

"We've got a shot to victory," Sanders said in an interview. "We have come a very long way in the last 11 months, and we are going to fight this out until the end of the process."

Of the 247 Democratic delegates at stake in New York, Clinton picked up at least 104 while Sanders gained at least 85. Many remained to be allocated, pending final vote tallies.

Sanders spent Tuesday in Pennsylvania, as did Cruz, Trump's main rival. Cruz panned Trump's win as little more than "a politician winning his home state," then implored Republicans to unite around his candidacy.

"We must unite the Republican Party because doing so is the first step in uniting all Americans," Cruz said.

Kasich also left New York early to stump for votes in Maryland, which will hold primaries next week.

"When you have these sky-high negatives, nobody's voting for you," Kasich said Tuesday afternoon in Annapolis. Looking toward a contested convention, he added: "It's interesting because my positives are the highest in the field."

Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said the campaign is already looking ahead to nominating contests next week in five states.

"I think the Cruz campaign is going to be mathematically eliminated from the nomination a week from tonight," Lewandowski said. "If the results go well tonight, he has to win 95 percent of the remaining delegates moving forward, which is almost an impossible task. I think it's time to unite around Donald Trump. He's the only person who can win the nomination, he's the only person who can get the delegates, he's the only one who can expand the map moving into the general election."

When asked about the campaign's sudden restructuring, which has shifted power away from Lewandowski, the campaign manager replied: "We're growing, baby."

Trump was blown out by Cruz in the last Republican primary, in Wisconsin, and has been steadily losing ground to the senator's better-organized campaign ever since, as Republicans choose their national delegates at state- and district-level conventions across the country.

Cruz's effort to gain support from delegates pledged to Trump is crucial if the party nomination is contested. Most delegates are pledged only for the first round of balloting at the party convention and are free to support the candidate of their choice if the vote is contested and heads to a second round.

Trump, complaining the system is rigged, has recently shaken up his campaign, bringing in some of the Washington insiders he once criticized, in hopes of tapping their delegate-hunting and organizational expertise in the run-up to the convention.

Clinton lead widens

The Democratic contest between Clinton and Sanders marked a potential turning point in their competitive race. Clinton has maintained a solid lead in the delegate count throughout much of the primary season, and a win in New York strengthens her claim to the Democratic nomination.

Clinton cast her own vote in Chappaqua in suburban New York, where supporters had waited outside with signs and buttons.

Even before the results were in, her top campaign aides cast her as the near-certain nominee and urging Sanders to tone down his attacks on the former secretary of state.

Sanders campaigned aggressively in New York, playing up his own roots in Brooklyn -- where he was born -- but he, too, headed to Pennsylvania before voting wrapped up.

Speaking at a rally at Pennsylvania State University, however, he appeared to predict a win for his rival but assured his supporters that he wouldn't be shut out entirely.

"Virtually the entire New York Democratic establishment is standing with her," he told more than 6,600 people in State College, mostly college students.

He added: "We're going to do just fine tonight in New York."

The Democrats award their delegates proportionally, with 247 up for grabs in New York, the largest state prize so far in the race.

Election board probe

In New York City, the Board of Elections conceded that tens of thousands of Brooklyn voters had been purged from the voter rolls and residents complained about problems at polling sites across the city. Angered by the news, city officials announced plans to audit the agency and New York Mayor Bill be Blasio said he wanted the problems fixed in time for congressional primaries scheduled in June.

In reaction to the closed primaries, Sanders said New York officials need to "make some fundamental changes about how they do business."

Sanders also said it was absurd that polls in upstate New York did not open until noon, a time that makes it impossible for some working-class voters to participate.

Despite the troubles, many New Yorkers on Tuesday celebrated their state's importance in the race, even if they have grown a bit weary of the barrage of ads on the airwaves in recent weeks.

"It's nice. I feel like our vote usually doesn't count," said Sunita Ray, 41, who voted for Clinton in Midtown Manhattan. Still, she said, she will not miss some aspects of the heated primary campaign. "The ads were a little annoying."

Dee Ann Boyd, 54, who lives in Midtown Manhattan and directs a nonprofit organization, said she voted for Kasich. She considers Trump "dangerous" and decided against Cruz. "I don't think he has the respect of his colleagues," she said.

"I don't think my vote is going to matter today," said Boyd, noting Kasich's unlikely path to the nomination, "but I voted my conscience."

Kasich and Cruz are trying to stay close enough in the delegate count to push the GOP race to a contested convention. Cruz's campaign feels confident that it's mastered the complicated process of lining up individual delegates who could shift their support to the Texas senator after a first round of convention balloting.

Trump's political strength, though he boasts of drawing new members to the party, has left some Republicans concerned that his nomination could splinter the GOP. Among Republican voters in New York, nearly 6 in 10 said the nominating contest is dividing the party, according to exit polls.

A majority of New York Republican voters -- 7 in 10 -- said the party should nominate the leading candidate regardless of whether they achieve an absolute majority of convention delegates, according to exit poll results reported by CNN.

Tuesday's vote also signaled stronger unity among Democrats than Republicans. At least 6 in 10 New York Democratic primary voters said they would definitely support either Clinton or Sanders as the party's nominee, according to preliminary exit poll data reported by ABC News. But about half of Republicans said they would "definitely support" Trump, while roughly a quarter would support Cruz, and 3 in 10 would support Kasich.

Before New York's tallies were finalized, Trump led the GOP race with 756 delegates, ahead of Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 144. Securing the GOP nomination requires 1,237.

Clinton had 1,758 delegates to Sanders' 1,076. Those totals include both pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses and superdelegates, the party insiders and elected officials who can back the candidate of their choice regardless of how their state votes. It takes 2,383 to win the Democratic nomination.

From New York, the campaign heads to a batch of contests next week that includes Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island as well as Maryland. In all, 172 delegates will be chosen along a heavily urban corridor.

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace, Jonathan Lemire, Thomas Beaumont, Lisa Lerer, Julie Bykowicz, Emily Swanson and Steve Peoples of The Associated Press; by Mark Z. Barabak of the Los Angeles Times; and by Abby Phillip, Jenna Johnson, Ed O'Keefe, John Wagner, Sean Sullivan, Jose A. Del Real, Scott Clement, Juliet Eilperin and Anne Gearan of The Washington Post.

A Section on 04/20/2016