News Analysis: Big wins in New York put Trump, Clinton back in driver's seat in own party's nomination race

After a fierce battle to stay on top in recent weeks, both U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart Hillary Clinton are back on track to grab their parties' nomination after big wins in New York primary Tuesday.

The New York primary was a much-needed big victory for Trump, after several weeks in which rival Senator Ted Cruz cast some doubt on whether the brash billionaire could get enough delegates to clinch the nomination.

Likewise, Clinton's victory over rival Bernie Sanders put her back in a decisive position to grab the Democratic nomination, after the Vermont senator schooled her in Washington, Hawaii and Alaska last month, beating her soundly in those states.

While there was never any real doubt that Clinton would ultimately win the nomination, there were questions over how long Sanders would put up such a fierce fight.

"The decisive New York victory puts Trump back on path towards the nomination," Brookings Institution's senior fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.

"He (Trump) had lost a number of states to Cruz and a series of missteps had raised doubts about his staying power with voters. But his large margin across virtually every county in New York shows that he still has strong vote-getting power and Republican elites have not succeeded in derailing his candidacy," he said.

Still, the controversial candidate needs to follow up the win with strong victories next week in the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut. If he does well in those places, it will give him momentum going into the final stages of the primaries, West said.

West added that Cruz remains in the race despite a poor showing in New York because Republican elites are desperate to find somebody who can stop Trump.

"Cruz' victories over the past month led party leaders to believe he could derail Trump, but it is not clear whether Cruz can do that," West said.

"His best bet is to keep Trump from a majority on the first ballot and hope that Trump delegates desert their candidate on following ballots," he added.

Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, told Xinhua that Trump's New York win is important on a number of fronts.

First, it brings him a large number of delegates, which is important given the organizational losses he has suffered against Cruz in recent weeks, Zelizer said.

Second, it impacts the media narrative by causing it to focus on his ability to win big in northeastern states rather than his struggles with Cruz.

Finally, Trump's struggles encouraged him to calm his rhetoric, and since it worked, this might be his path in the coming weeks, Zelizer said.

Dan Mahaffee, an analyst with the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua that Trump's win gives him some valuable momentum.

"To use sports parlance, it was nice to have a large home win after a rough stretch on the road. It shifts attention away from the narrative of Cruz poaching away delegates, and it leads to further primaries that should be friendly to Trump in other northeast states," Nahaffee said.

Still, Zelizer wrote Wednesday on CNN.com that the road ahead will be tough for Trump even after his big win in New York, as a number of his weaknesses have been exposed.

Zelizer argued that Trump has relied thus far on a media campaign, contending that on-the-ground organization -- such as volunteers canvassing localities to get the word out about Trump -- has always been the New York tycoon's Achilles' heel.

Another weakness is the controversy around one Trump supporter who sucker punched a protester at a Trump rally. Instead of condemning the action, Trump initially offered to pay the assailant's bills, Zelizer noted.

"By failing to condemn the violence, he has not helped his cause," Zelizer argued, adding that Trump's poll numbers have been falling since the incident.

At the same time, Clinton's strong victory puts her in decisive position for the Democratic Party's nomination, West said.

"She vanquished Sanders even though he spent several million dollars more than she did on campaign advertising. She beat him in many voter categories and even polled even with him among white voters, which had been a tough demographic for her. It is hard to see how Sanders will be able to overcome her delegate lead," West said.

Mahaffee said Clinton's win allows her to argue that the momentum and mathematics are on her side to win the nomination.

While Sanders was able to draw crowds, in a closed primary without independents and new voters who have flocked to Sanders, Clinton was able to win with strong support from long-time Democrats, minorities and women, he said.

For her part, Clinton also needed a decisive victory over Sanders, who has in recent months shocked experts and pundits who underestimated how popular he would be with young, while liberal voters, who make up his main support base.

Sanders' popularity leading up to New York stemmed from a mix of what critics called a weak Clinton campaign and an unusually dissatisfied population of millennials, who continue to feel the sting of the 2008 economic downturn.

The group has a high rate of unemployment and is saddled with large amounts of student debt -- around 35,000 U.S. dollars per person, according to some estimates -- far higher than the same age group a decade ago. Sanders' anti-establishment message has appealed to this crowd.

Nevertheless, the New York loss will hit the Sanders campaign hard.

"It means that Sanders barely has any real mathematical chance of winning. So this will help nurture a media discussion that is beneficial to (Clinton's) candidacy and in terms of the numbers almost impossible for Sanders to win," Zelizer said. Endit