Presidential hopefuls in a New York state of mind

Combined dispatches

BROOKLYN, N.Y.

The Jewish holiday of Passover is coming, and that means a chance for Republicans to pick up some badly needed GOP convention delegates.

Yes, in this street brawl of a nominating process, every delegate matters. And since delegates often are awarded according to a candidate’s showing in each congressional district, that means convincing the locals you’re sort of one of them.

That’s why, as New York’s Tuesday primary approaches, presidential candidates have campaigned as though they were seeking city council seats, making sure they stopped at local Brooklyn bakeries where workers are furiously making matzo, the unleavened bread Jews ceremoniously eat during the eight days of Passover. The holiday begins at sundown April 22.

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio stood outside a Borough Park facility on a cold, damp afternoon one day this week, holding a 1-pound box of matzo and expounding on the similarities between Christians and Jews. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, went to a matzo operation in another part of the borough and joked about “hole-y” matzo.

No audience is too small for such surgical delegate operations. No congressional district is too remote. New York has a total of 95 Republicans delegates, one of the last big state prizes remaining in the primary race. Fourteen go to the statewide winner. Each of the 27 congressional districts awards three.

Polls show Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman and Manhattan icon, far ahead of Cruz and Kasich in the state, so the underdogs have two missions. One is to pick up delegates in the congressional districts. If Trump gets more than 50 percent in a district, he gets all three. If not, his rivals could pick up delegates.

The other goal is to get more than 20 percent of the vote statewide while keeping Trump under 50. If he gets the majority, he gets all the at-large delegates. If not, they’re distributed proportionately to candidates who get more than 20 percent.

That means Brooklyn, where 608 Republicans voted in one congressional district in 2012 and 801 voted in another, has as much clout as the district that includes Long Island’s Suffolk County. More than 10,000 voted there in the 2012 primary.

Kasich and Cruz need every last delegate in what’s become an insider dogfight to stop Trump from going to the convention with the 1,237 needed to nominate.

Wyoming delegates

Trump’s presidential campaign has all but thrown in the towel in Wyoming ahead of today’s Republican convention.

Trump’s campaign made a conscious decision not to commit resources to Wyoming, according to Alan Cobb, a senior Trump adviser.

Trump picked up only a single delegate in last month’s Wyoming county conventions, while Cruz scored nine. There are 14 more delegates at stake at this weekend’s state convention.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press from the convention site in Casper, Cobb said Friday that he expects Cruz to sweep what remains of the 29 delegates up for grabs in the Wyoming convention.

Sanders at the Vatican

Bernie Sanders issued a global call to action at the Vatican on Friday to address “immoral and unsustainable” wealth inequality and poverty, using the high-profile gathering to echo one of the central platforms of his presidential campaign.

The Democratic senator cited Pope Francis and St. John Paul II repeatedly during his speech to the Vatican conference commemorating the 25th anniversary of a landmark teaching document from John Paul on social and economic justice after the Cold War.

Sanders arrived in Rome hours after wrapping up a debate in New York Thursday night, saying the opportunity to address the Vatican conference was too meaningful to pass up. The roughly 24-hour visit precedes Tuesday’s crucial New York primary.