Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has surged to a 15-point lead over reeling, gaffe-plagued Republican Donald Trump, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll. 
 
 Clinton made strong gains with two constituencies crucial to a Republican victory – whites and men – while scoring important gains among fellow Democrats, the poll found. 
 
 Clinton not only went up, but Trump also went down. Clinton now has a 48-33 percent lead, a huge turnaround from her narrow 42-39 advantage last month. 
 
 The findings are particularly significant because the poll was taken after both political conventions ended and as Trump engaged in a war of words with the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in an explosion in Iraq 12 years ago while trying to rescue other soldiers. 
 
 “This is coming off the Democratic convention, where a bounce is expected,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York, which conducted the nationwide survey. 
 
 “What you don’t want is to have the worst week of your campaign,” a characterization many analysts use to describe Trump’s recent days. 
 
 Other polls have shown Clinton in the lead, though Marist’s is the largest so far. 
 
 Among poll respondents, Clinton was seen more often as a potential president. Fifty-three percent said they would find her acceptable; 39 percent felt that way about Trump. 
 
 Francis Duffy, 76, an Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, Republican, said she was voting for Clinton because she found Trump to be scary. “I just don’t feel that Donald Trump is qualified. I think he’s a loose cannon,” she said. 
 
 In a four-way race, Clinton retains her lead. She gets 45 percent to Trump’s 31 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson has 10 percent, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein has 6 percent. 
 
 The new survey showed Clinton has cut sharply into the Republican nominee’s advantages in every ethnic and racial group. 
 
 After a bitter battle with rival Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator whose supporters fought all the way to the convention, she has solidified her strength among Democrats, 90 percent of whom now back her, up from 83 percent last month. 
 
 Jorge Vietes, 78, a native of Argentina who lives in Stockton, California, sided with Sanders in the primary, and is not swayed by Trump’s efforts to woo Sanders’ voters. 
 
 “I have no choice but to go for Clinton,” said Vietes, an independent voter. “Trump is kind of a crazy guy.” 
 
 Trump gets the nod from just 79 percent of Republicans, down from 85 percent last month. Some top GOP officials have put distance between themselves and the billionaire businessman, with some saying they’ll back Clinton. 
 
 Men had been the bedrock of Trump support. Last month, he was up by 14 percentage points among men; he’s now down 8. 
 
 Clinton remains strong with women, among whom she holds a 20-point advantage. 
 
 Trump, who gleefully cited polls at campaign events as he swept the Republican primaries, has lately questioned polling. 
 
 In Jacksonville, Fla., he said Wednesday, “I hear we’re leading Florida by a bit.” He added, “I don’t know why we’re not leading by a lot. Maybe crowds don’t make the difference.” 
 
 And at a rally in Virginia on Tuesday, he said: “I think these polls – I don't know – there's something about these polls, there's something phony.” 
 
 Janelle Pierre-Louis, 19, an independent voter and college student in Port St. Lucie, Florida, said she’s voting for Clinton because she can’t see voting for Trump. 
 
 “The way he represents himself is just not favorable,” she said. “And he wants to build a wall and target immigrants? I’m not sure why he wants to cut off immigrants.” 
 
 Trump collapsed almost everywhere that he’d built decent support. Even among white voters, a demographic that has favored Republican White House candidates in recent elections, Trump was lagging, ahead of Clinton, but only just barely, 41-39. 
 
 Paul House of Chiefland, Florida, is an independent voter, but said he’s backing Trump. Clinton “just seems so dishonest and has had so many things she’s been two-faced about. We’ve got more than enough of that in our government.” 
 
 But John Hawkins, of Gainesville, Florida, who had been in the Sanders camp, said he’s for Clinton. Trump never had a chance with him., he said. 
 
 “I think the guy is crazy. He gets a deferment status out of Vietnam and he starts something with a military family? I just don’t see anything presidential about him,” Hawkins said. 
 
 That’s a troubling finding for a Republican. In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney won whites by 20 points, and still lost the election. In 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won the white vote by 12 points and lost. 
 
 Clinton wins moderates, 50-27 percent. She is far ahead with black voters, 93-2 percent, and with Latinos, 55-26 percent. 
 
 More encouraging for Clinton, 57 percent of her backers say their vote is for her, while 40 percent say it’s largely an anti-Trump vote. 
 
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 Among the no-Trump voters is Cassandra Crockett, 66, a retired registered nurse from Winston-Salem, N.C., who says she’s “really not that fond” of Clinton. 
 
 Trump, though, is “a racist and he starts trouble everywhere he goes,” she said. She was disturbed by Trump’s seeming call for Russia to hack Clinton’s email. 
 
 “That’s just not acceptable to invite a foreign country into our election,” she said. “I don’t trust her, but at least she can represent us. I can’t see him meeting with any foreign leaders.” 
 
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 Most of Trump’s backers – 57 percent – say their vote is against Clinton, while only 36 percent called it a pro-Trump decision. 
 
 EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE 
 
 Wayne Jones, a Canton, Ohio, retiree, says he’s voting for Trump, but is not particularly a fan and doesn’t believe Trump actually wants to become president. 
 
 “This is the biggest scam ever pulled in an election,” the independent voter said. “No one with his education, his smarts, would go out and shoot himself in the foot everyday if he wanted to be president.” 
 
 On issue after issue, Clinton ranked ahead of Trump. She’s up by 8 when asked who can best handle the war on terror. She’s ahead 21 on immigration, 14 on gun violence, 14 on trade and 4 on creating jobs, which had been one of Trump’s strengths. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 For the first time in this long election campaign, Republican Donald Trump has pulled ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. 
 
 Mrs Clinton's double-digit lead, which she has held over the past several months, has vanished - and with it, apparently, Democrats' dreams of a transformational 2016 victory that would leave Republicans wandering the wilderness for a generation. 
 
 What happened? A closer look at those poll numbers offers some clarity. 
 
 Republicans have rallied around Trump 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Conservatives, including leaders of the National Rifle Association, are falling in line behind Donald Trump (centre) 
 
 Remember the #NeverTrump movement? No one in the Republican Party seems to. While certain pundits (Bill Kristol) and politicians (Mitt Romney) continue to tilt at the independent-conservative-candidate windmill, the rank and file of the party appear to be falling in line behind their presumptive nominee. 
 
 According to a Washington Post survey, 85% of Republicans plan to vote for their man. A New York Times offering finds a similar number. 
 
 As for the party establishment, most prominent officeholders seem to either be backing Mr Trump or trying their best to disappear into the scenery. Even Senator John McCain, whose war record was belittled by Mr Trump last summer, has said he'll support the party nominee. 
 
 While there still seems to be significant interest in a third-party candidate - 44% of respondents told Washington Post pollsters that they wanted another choice - every passing day makes such a development less likely. 
 
 Republicans are deciding that Mr Trump - warts and all - is their guy. The scene last week, where Mr Trump - who once backed an assault weapons ban - received a hero's welcome and an unusually early endorsement from the National Rifle Association, only drove that point home. 
 
 Hillary Clinton has a Bernie Sanders problem 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Sanders supporters love their man but are cool on Hillary Clinton - for now 
 
 A recent Economist/YouGov poll shows that among Sanders supporters, 55% would vote for Mrs Clinton, 15% would back Mr Trump and the rest either don't know or would pick someone else. It's not particularly surprising, given that 61% of Sanders backers view Mrs Clinton unfavourably and 72% say she's "not honest and trustworthy". 
 
 Speaking of Mr Sanders, his supporters cite these recent head-to-head polls as evidence that their man should stay in the Democratic race despite delegate maths that make victory seem extremely unlikely. In the YouGov poll, which shows Mrs Clinton with a 42% to 40% lead over Mr Trump, Mr Sanders had a 48% to 39% advantage. 
 
 That seems to support the contention that Mrs Clinton's supporters are more likely to back Mr Sanders in a general election match-up than the other way around. 
 
 It also could be an indication of what the Washington Post's Philip Bump calls the "special of the house" effect. When presented with two options that they don't like - Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton - some voters are inclined to go for a third, less-known choice. 
 
 The response from the Clinton camp is that Mr Sanders has largely avoided being targeted by his opponents on the left or the right, while the former secretary of state has been bloodied on the political battlefield for decades. 
 
 The Sanders problem isn't going away 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption There will be no rematch of the contentious Clinton-Sanders debate in New York last month. 
 
 The exchanges over head-to-head polling are just part of the increased tension within the Democratic Party that could be having a negative effect on Mrs Clinton's polling numbers. 
 
 Earlier this week, the Clinton campaign announced that it would not take part in a proposed California Democratic debate hosted by Fox News, prompting a stern rebuke from the Sanders team. 
 
 Although Democratic officials have made some attempts at peace-brokering, including offering Mr Sanders the chance to name members of key national convention committees, the man who only recently joined the Democratic Party has continued to rankle the party establishment. 
 
 On Sunday, for instance, he told a television interviewer he planned to back the candidate challenging Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in her congressional primary. 
 
 On Monday Mr Sanders predicted that the Democratic National Convention would be "messy". 
 
 "Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle," he added. 
 
 Then on Tuesday, the Sanders campaign announced it wanted a review of Mrs Clinton's narrow win in the Kentucky primary one week ago. 
 
 Each day brings new evidence that Mr Sanders is not giving up the fight any time soon - no matter how it might affect Mrs Clinton's positioning against Mr Trump. 
 
 The demographics are split 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Hillary Clinton has a decided advantage among women and minorities 
 
 Minorities and women are overwhelming supporting Mrs Clinton. Right now that's being balanced out by whites and men who are backing Mr Trump in large numbers. 
 
 Exactly how big are these gaps? According to the Washington Post poll, 57% of whites and men support Mr Trump. Mrs Clinton can count on the backing of 69% of non-whites, and leads Mr Trump 52% to 38% among women. 
 
 Among whites without a college degree, 65% support Mr Trump versus only 25% for Mrs Clinton. 
 
 Meanwhile, many independents are keeping their powder dry. Although their role is often overstated - they usually end up as reliable partisans when all is said and done - there is a small segment of US voters who are truly free agents. And right now many seem to be balking. 
 
 According to the Washington Post poll, 48% of self-professed independents are backing Mr Trump, while only 35% support Mrs Clinton. The remaining 18% either want someone else or no one. 
 
 The YouGov poll paints a slightly different picture, with Mrs Clinton up 41% to 34% over Mr Trump, but the number not ready to back either - 24% - is equally sizeable. 
 
 But it's still early 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption John McCain led Barack Obama in some polls in 2008 - before being soundly defeated 
 
 Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan in early 1980 presidential polls. Michael Dukakis had a commanding lead over George HW Bush in 1988. John McCain edged ahead of Barack Obama at similar point in the general election cycle in 2008. There were several times in 2012 where Mr Romney had a lead. 
 
 In other words, polls this far out from election day - particularly when one of the primary races is settled and the other isn't - aren't particularly good indicators of election-day outcomes. 
 
 If Mrs Clinton can consolidate her base - and the key is if - then the current Democratic teeth-gnashing may be overblown. 
 
 Mr Trump could be at his polling high-water mark only to see demographics, such as his low standing with women and minorities, and the realities of the state-by-state electoral landscape catch up with him. 
 
 But here's where we cut-and-paste those words of caution in every Trump polling story published since last autumn. The normal political rules don't seem to apply to the man. Just because things have happened one way in the past doesn't mean they will play out that way this time. 
 
 If admonitions that it's too far out to put much faith in polling sound familiar, it's the same thing people were saying last summer, when surveys had Mr Trump on top in key primary states and nationally. 
 
 The only thing we know right now is that, at this moment, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are essentially in a dead heat. And Mr Trump has made a lot of pundits and prognosticators look foolish over the past year. ||||| Everyone but Donald Trump and his most ardent supporters recognize that Donald Trump lost Monday night’s debate. And because of the candidate’s stubborn disbelief in his ability to do anything but win, Trump lost the post-debate period too. 
 
 Now he’s doubling down. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Despite warnings from fellow Republicans against insulting a beauty queen he disparaged for gaining weight and launching an attack on Hillary Clinton for her husband’s well-known infidelities, Trump is now directing his surrogates to do just that. 
 
 “Mr. Trump has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they worked to destroy Bill Clinton’s accusers,” reads one of the talking points the campaign sent to surrogates on Thursday as the controversy surrounding the story of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado continued to dominate headlines of the race. 
 
 And during a rally Thursday afternoon in Bedford, N.H., Trump himself referenced the scandals of the 1990s that he’s been congratulating himself for not talking about all week. “The Clintons are the sordid past,” he said. “We will be the very bright and clean future.” 
 
 For three days since Clinton’s dominant debate performance, Trump and his team have been flailing wildly to change the meta-narrative coming out of the showdown. And they have yet to alight on anything to effectively spin the result, challenge the conventional wisdom that Clinton won or to change the subject to anything less damaging for the GOP nominee. 
 
 Inside Trump Tower, his inner circle of advisers has been in turmoil: while some have attempted to reach to the hard-headed candidate by suggesting to reporters that he must prepare more thoroughly for the second debate, others have spit-balled ideas aimed at changing the subject, including a last-minute trip to Israel that might replicate the more presidential optics and media saturation coverage they achieved with last month’s surprise summit with the Mexican president. 
 
 Trump himself has reportedly chided aides who have privately acknowledged to reporters that Clinton bested him on the debate stage. 
 
 But that private uncertainty and unease about what was so clearly a disappointing performance has oozed into public view. Since the debate Monday night, surrogates and Trump himself have both praised and criticized the moderator, Lester Holt. One of Trump’s closest confidants at the moment, Rudy Giuliani, said immediately after the debate that he’d advise Trump to skip the next two and on Wednesday indulged a conspiracy, propagated by a Russian state-controlled news site, that Clinton might have gotten the questions in advance. And on Thursday, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said she had indeed told her candidate not to call women “fat pigs” but quickly tried to dismiss his insults as “beside the point” because he in fact supports women. 
 
 “With Trump, it’s always the tyranny of the urgent and right now it is he has to have people believe he won, or that if he didn't it was rigged and unfair,” said Rick Tyler, a GOP operative who worked on Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. “The purpose of having 84 million people watch is to get more people on his campaign; that's winning. In his mind, it's just about winning the debate. The objective is actually winning the election.” 
 
 Trump’s backers have been more consistent in their adherence to another fatuous talking point, stating that Trump deserved credit for being “gentlemanly” and even “courageous” for not bringing up the subject of Bill Clinton’s infidelities that they are themselves bringing up, increasingly in less uncertain, veiled terms. 
 
 And the candidate has compounded the damage by failing or refusing to recognize the damage done by his assertion that avoiding paying income taxes “makes me smart” and his repetition of comments about how a former Miss Universe “gained a massive amount of weight” after he awarded her crown was “a real problem.” 
 
 In reality, both Trump’s tacit references to the Lewinsky scandal and his explicit references to the Miss Universe story—something Clinton’s campaign used knowingly to bait Trump and has since pushed into the news cycle—are likely to prevent him from expanding support among undecided women voters, a bloc that may tip the balance of the election more than any other. 
 
 “What has been relatively true in the general [election] is that when the news is about Trump, his numbers stagnate and drop. And it’s been the same pattern with her. Right now the story is all about him,” said Sarah Isgur Flores, whose former boss, Carly Fiorina, was also criticized by Trump for her appearance. “After the Megyn Kelly thing, after Carly’s thing, his voters know him. That doesn't mean they approve of it. They just think country has reached a point where they need big change. But holding his supporters is not enough heading into November. He had to build and this doesn't help building.” 
 
 Tyler put it bluntly: “He needs more women supporters, and reminding people he called someone Miss Piggy or Miss Housekeeper is not helpful.” 
 
 Desperate to put any sort of positive gloss on a disappointing debate performance, Trump’s campaign claimed to have seen an $18 million windfall in small-dollar online donations in the 24 hours after the debate.However, it’s not yet clear if that money is all from online contributions or how much of it will be available to Trump, as POLITICO reported Thursday. 
 
 
 
 Clinton’s campaign, meanwhile, is starting to put the pedal down. Even before the candidate mentioned Machado, her communications and rapid response operations had laid the groundwork. Machado had already done a photo shoot and interview with Cosmopolitan that popped online less than 24 hours after the debate. The campaign quickly organized a press call with Machado. They cut a video encapsulating the debate exchange and Machado’s story, which has been a staple of cable news coverage for 48 hours now. In swing states, women surrogates have been amplifying Clinton’s argument. 
 
 And Democrats have said they would love to see Trump try to tar Clinton for her husband’s cheating past, something veteran Republican operatives and GOP lawmakers desperately want their candidate to avoid. 
 
 “What you’ve seen in the last 48 hours is that Clinton actually has a campaign,” said Stuart Stevens, the GOP strategist behind Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign. “What you see is the Clinton campaign has an extra gear they can go into, and the Trump campaign really doesn’t.” 
 
 The biggest impediment to the campaign's ability to change gears quickly is the candidate, a person who resists change, struggles to accept constructive criticism and has reportedly lashed out at advisers who have been more critical in anonymous statements to the press. 
 
 Thursday afternoon, Trump's senior communications adviser Jason Miller refused to accept the premise that his boss had anything but an "excellent" debate, pointing to unscientific online polls--broadly dismissed by political professionals--that declared Trump the winner. 
 
 "The one dynamic driving this is that it's not about trying to win an election, it’s about trying to please Donald Trump," Stevens said. "Your ability to rise and fall in that organization is predicated on your willingness to say something that will please the boss." ||||| LONG BEACH, Calif. — Hillary Clinton became the presumptive Democratic nominee in a surprise development on Monday, making her the first woman ever to win a major party’s presidential nomination one day before she was expected to cross the threshold. 
 
 The historic moment, years in the making, came after the former secretary of state passed the mark with a combination of pledged and superdelegates in her contest against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 But the announcement — first made by The Associated Press, and quickly confirmed by NBC and ABC — had not been expected until Tuesday night, when results from six states, including California and New Jersey, come in. Clinton's campaign had prepared a major victory rally in Brooklyn for Tuesday night, exactly eight years to the day after she conceded the 2008 race to then-Sen. Barack Obama. 
 
 Clinton’s embrace of the history-making occasion was uneasy. At one moment, her campaign was sending a fundraising text to supporters passing along the AP’s call. At another, she was tweeting about the coming primaries on Tuesday. 
 
 At her rally here on Monday night, Clinton alluded only briefly to the AP’s proclamation. 
 
 "According to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, unprecedented moment, but we still have work to do," she said. "We have six elections tomorrow and we are going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California." 
 
 Later, during her brief remarks at her star-studded concert fundraiser at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre to end the evening, Clinton didn't even mention that the race had already been called, encouraging attendees to vote in California. Still, that didn't stop a host of celebrity speakers from alluding to the news but stressing the importance of competing through Tuesday. 
 
 Clinton’s victory sets up a titanic clash against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who ripped through 16 primary rivals on his way to becoming the unlikely leader of a party he joined only recently. 
 
 But Sanders, long suspicious of superdelegates' role in the process, refused to concede on Monday night. His communications director, Michael Briggs, decried the media's "rush to judgment," signaling Sanders' intention to fight on. 
 
 “It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer," Briggs said in a statement noting that Clinton “does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination.” 
 
 It was indeed superdelegates who put Clinton over the top — the AP spent the day surveying these party insiders and counted those who said they were "unequivocally" for Clinton, according to the news agency's U.S. political editor, David Scott. 
 
 Delegates Remaining: 56 Delegates 2,814 1,893 56 2,382 Delegates Needed for Nomination 
 
 The timing was a surprise, coming only hours before voters head to the polls on the last major day of the Democratic primary, even if the outcome was not. And the Clinton campaign, mindful of the need to court Sanders supporters deeply suspicious of the process, signaled it understood the need to let the voters have their say. 
 
 “Hillary Clinton is working to earn every vote," campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement. "We look forward to Tuesday night, when Hillary Clinton will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates." 
 
 Before the AP updated its count and put her over the top, Clinton was just 23 delegates shy of the 2,383 needed to clinch the nomination, and with hundreds of delegates up for grabs on Tuesday, she was expected to easily cross that threshold. 
 
 But given Clinton’s reliance on superdelegates to reach a majority, Sanders has vowed to wage a bitter battle all the way to the Democratic National Convention in July, insisting that nothing is official until the ballots are tallied in Philadelphia and arguing that he would make a better opponent to face Trump. 
 
 So far, Clinton has trod lightly, wary of alienating progressives she needs for the coming general election battle. 
 
 “I certainly am going to be reaching out to Sen. Sanders and hope he will join me in that, because we've got to be unified going into the convention and coming out of the convention to take on Donald Trump,” Clinton told reporters on Monday. 
 
 Clinton has been eager to take on Trump — stepping up her attacks on his "racist" rhetoric and unfitness for the Oval Office — but earlier on Monday she found time to reflect on the historic nature of her victory. 
 
 "My supporters are passionate. They are committed. They have voted for me in great numbers across our country for many reasons. But among those reasons is their belief that having a woman president will make a great statement, a historic statement about what kind of country we are, what we stand for. It's really emotional. And I am someone who has been very touched and really encouraged by this extraordinary conviction that people have," she said. "It's predominantly women and girls, but not exclusively — men bring their daughters to meet me and tell me that they are supporting me because of their daughters. And I do think that it will make a very big difference for a father or a mother to be able to look at their daughter just like they can look at their son and say, 'You can be anything you want to be in this country, including president of the United States.'" 
 
 Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have been at pains to show that they are taking nothing for granted — campaigning hard in California in recent weeks, looking to win the primary in the biggest state in the country as a capstone to her long march to the nomination. 
 
 But embedded in her comments in recent days is a clear message to Sanders: Your time is up. 
 
 Sanders has shocked the political world, and seemingly himself, by creating not only a progressive movement but also a fundraising powerhouse that will have helped him win more than 20 states, when all’s said and done. 
 
 It’s a stunning success for a democratic socialist from Vermont who only recently embraced the Democratic Party and has spent decades on Capitol Hill with few marquee legislative successes to his name. 
 
 But Sanders' frustration has been visible as Clinton barreled toward victory. 
 
 He bristled when asked by reporters on Monday whether he was "standing in the way of what could be the first female president," and, "At what point do you become a spoiler, though?" 
 
 Sanders brushed off the questions, pointing to polls that show him faring better than Clinton in head-to-head matchups against Trump. 
 
 "Our goal is to get as many delegates as we possibly can and to make the case to superdelegates that I believe the evidence is very strong that I am the strongest candidate," Sanders said at a news conference in Emeryville, California. 
 
 But he also hinted that he’s coming closer to accepting that the math just doesn’t work in his favor. 
 
 Sanders told reporters that he'll be headed on a plane back to Burlington on Tuesday night and that he and his aides will "assess where we are" after the election results come in. 
 
 As of Monday evening, Sanders faced a near-impossible task to overtake Clinton among pledged delegates. He would have needed to win roughly two-thirds of the pledged delegates between Tuesday’s contests and next week’s primary in the District of Columbia — a massive jump from the roughly 46 percent of pledged delegates he’s won thus far — to pass Clinton. 
 
 There are also clear signs that patience with Sanders has run out. 
 
 Reports leaked out on Monday that President Barack Obama spoke with Sanders on Sunday, and that Obama was ready to endorse Clinton as early as this week. 
 
 And Clinton herself on Monday said in not so subtle terms that she’s ready for the next phase in the campaign — one in which she takes the fight to Trump, with her 2008 primary rival by her side. 
 
 "I look forward to campaigning with the president and everyone else," she said. 
 
 Hadas Gold and Shane Goldmacher contributed to this report. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — From a car wash in Queens to a hockey arena in Buffalo, both parties' presidential candidates spread out across New York Monday in a final quest for votes, a surreal scene for a state that hasn't experienced contested White House primaries in decades. 
 
 For Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, victories in New York Tuesday could help quiet critics who have questioned their strength as front-runners. Each has suffered losses in recent contests that emboldened their rivals, though they still lead in delegate counts and are favored in New York. 
 
 Clinton, who represented the state as a senator for eight years, spent the final hours of campaigning trying to drive up turnout among women and minorities, her most ardent supporters. Since Sunday, she's danced to Latin music at a Brooklyn block party, vowed to defend abortion rights to female supporters in Manhattan, prayed at black church in Westchester, drunk a bubble tea at a dumpling shop in Flushing and cheered newly unionized workers in Queens. 
 
 "We're not taking anything for granted," she said Monday after greeting workers at the Hi-Tek Car Wash & Lube in Queens. "Tell your friends and your family, everyone, to please vote tomorrow." 
 
 Clinton's campaign was blunter in outlining the state of the Democratic race. Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook declared the primary effectively over, saying Sanders faced a "close to impossible path to the nomination." With the contest between Sanders and Clinton becoming increasingly tense, Mook said the Vermont senator had to choose whether he wanted to stay on a "destructive path" that could hurt the party's eventual nominee. 
 
 Sanders has rattled off a string of wins in recent primaries and caucuses. But unless he can topple Clinton in a delegate-rich state like New York, he faces increasingly limited opportunities to change the trajectory of the race. 
 
 While polling shows Clinton with a comfortable lead in New York, Sanders held out hope for a closer race. 
 
 "This is a campaign on the move," Sanders shouted to a crowd of thousands gathered along the waterfront in Queens Monday night, with the Manhattan skyline serving as a dramatic backdrop. "This is a movement getting the establishment very, very nervous." 
 
 For Trump, New York is an opportunity to rebound from a trying stretch for his campaign — and with an exclamation point. The biggest question for him heading into Tuesday is whether he captures more than 50 percent of the vote statewide, which would put him in strong position to win all of the state's 95 GOP delegates. 
 
 Trump was closing his New York campaigning with an evening rally in Buffalo, where thousands packed the city's hockey arena to catch a glimpse of the billionaire businessman. He's spent the past week emphasizing his ties to New York, particularly New York City, where he was born and where buildings bear his name. 
 
 "We love this city," he said Monday in brief remarks to reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower. "You look at the other folks that are running, they couldn't care less about New York." 
 
 A big win for Trump is crucial if he hopes to clinch the nomination before the party's convention in July. If the race isn't settled by then, he faces the very real prospect of losing to Ted Cruz, whose campaign is mastering the complicated process of lining up individual delegates who could shift their support to the Texas senator after the first round of convention balloting. 
 
 In New Mexico Monday, the state Republican Party announced a two-week extension for delegate applicants who missed an April 15 deadline. Cruz allies in the state criticized the move as a ploy by the Trump campaign as it tries to catch up with his rival's operation. 
 
 "This is truly Trump," said state lawmaker Rod Montoya, who has applied to be a delegate to the national convention. "Rather than learning how the process works, he cries and complains to get the process changed because he doesn't like it." 
 
 Cruz, who infamously panned Trump's "New York values" earlier in the primary, was bracing for a tough showing in Tuesday's contest. He was already looking ahead on the primary calendar, spending Monday campaigning in Maryland, where voters head to the polls next week. 
 
 Trump leads the GOP race with 744 delegates, ahead of Cruz with 545 and Kasich with 144. It takes 1,237 to win the GOP nomination. 
 
 Among Democrats, Clinton has accumulated 1,758 delegates to Sanders' 1,076. Those totals include both pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses, as well as superdelegates, the party insiders who can back the candidate of their choice regardless of how their state votes. 
 
 Heading into Tuesday's primary, Sanders needs to win 68 percent of the remaining delegates if he hopes to clinch the Democratic nomination. It takes 2,383 to win. 
 
 ___ 
 
 AP writers Hope Yen, Lisa Lerer, Steve Peoples, Julie Bykowicz and Morgan Lee contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Jonathan Lemire at http://twitter.com/JonLemire ||||| A month ago, Hillary Clinton had a big lead in national and battleground state polls. Today, she has a modest lead at best. A few surveys even show Donald Trump ahead. 
 
 What happened? Mr. Trump has made gains in unifying his party’s base, while Mrs. Clinton has not done the same with hers. If anything, her problem with Bernie Sanders’s voters has gotten a bit worse. 
 
 To some extent, Mr. Trump’s gains are not surprising. Candidates usually rise in the polls after they win the nomination and consolidate their party’s base. John McCain and Mitt Romney erased Barack Obama’s leads in 2008 and 2012 after they secured their party’s nomination; Mr. Obama reclaimed a clear lead in 2008 after he clinched the Democratic nomination. 
 
 But Mr. Trump’s success is an important accomplishment. A month ago, there were serious reasons to question whether the party would ever fully unify behind him. He has made a lot of progress, and has done it without much backing from Paul Ryan or Ted Cruz. The chance of a big win for Mrs. Clinton has appeared to decline as a result. 
 
 Photo 
 
 The prospect of another fairly close general election is not what Democrats were hoping for against Mr. Trump, but Mrs. Clinton will have a chance to widen the gap by winning over supporters of Mr. Sanders. 
 
 Mr. Trump, despite his gains, now finds himself at around 42 or 43 percent in national polls. He still trails Mrs. Clinton in the balance of recent surveys, even though she is facing a divided Democratic Party. She is in the lead, in no small part, because there are simply more Democratic-leaning voters than Republican-leaning voters in the country. All but one of the most recent surveys show that there are more Democrats than Republicans. 
 
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 But Mrs. Clinton nonetheless struggles because of her inability to consolidate the independent-leaning, young, liberal supporters of Mr. Sanders. The most recent wave of national surveys shows Mrs. Clinton winning just 55 to 72 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters. She’s faring far worse among young and liberal voters than one would expect. 
 
 The good news for Mrs. Clinton is that there’s a lot of room for improvement. She could make gains after winning the nomination, much as Mr. Trump already has. That could leave her with a considerable advantage. 
 
 Mr. Obama’s gains in June 2008 are probably the clearest precedent: He led by a wide margin until Mr. McCain won the nomination; he regained the lead after he was the Democratic Party’s choice. 
 
 Clinton Struggling to Unify Democrats Share of Bernie Sanders supporters who say they would vote for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump in the general election. ABC/Washington Post CBS/NYT YouGov March/April May 77% 71% March/April May 82% 72% March/April May 71% 55% Share of Bernie Sanders supporters who say they would vote for Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump in the general election. ABC/Washington Post CBS/NYT YouGov March/April May 77% 71% March/April May 82% 72% March/April May 71% 55% 
 
 Mrs. Clinton may find it not so easy to repeat Mr. Obama’s gains. There has been weakening in her support among Mr. Sanders’s supporters over the last month or so. In April, Mrs. Clinton held between 71 and 82 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters; today it’s between 55 and 72 percent. 
 
 Exactly what’s driving the shift is hard to say. What’s clear is that Mrs. Clinton’s challenge isn’t totally superficial. Just 20 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters have a favorable view of her in the most recent New York Times/CBS News survey, while 47 percent have an unfavorable one. 
 
 These numbers are not too different from the “anyone but Trump” voters in March. Then, The New York Times/CBS News survey found that just 17 percent of Republican primary voters who didn’t support Mr. Trump had a favorable view of him, while 50 percent were unfavorable. Depending on your point of view, it’s either a surprisingly bleak comparison or a favorable precedent, since Mr. Trump has since made gains in the polls. 
 
 Mrs. Clinton could get a lot of help in unifying the party, whether from President Obama, Elizabeth Warren or perhaps even Mr. Sanders himself. 
 
 The polls after Mrs. Clinton wins the nomination — and especially after the two party conventions — will provide a somewhat more instructive comparison between the two candidates.
– Not too long ago, Hillary Clinton held double-digit leads over Donald Trump in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup. Trump, however, has now actually edged ahead of her in an average of national polls compiled at RealClearPolitics. The development has prompted all kinds of analysis. Some highlights: "Mr. Trump has made gains in unifying his party's base, while Mrs. Clinton has not done the same with hers," writes Nate Cohn at the New York Times. "If anything, her problem with Bernie Sanders' voters has gotten a bit worse." But presidential polls in late May have "historically bad" track records, notes NPR. Let's see what happens after she picks up the nomination. Those who fear a Trump presidency shouldn't panic, writes Michael Cohen at the Boston Globe. "Unless Bernie Sanders refuses to endorse Clinton—and I can't imagine he would do that—the vast majority of Sanders backers will vote for the party nominee." On the other hand, "Sanders supporters hate the Democratic Party, and Trump is a unique political talent." This at the Daily Intelligencer, whose overview offers arguments for both Clinton and Trump supporters. Plus, "after six years of political gridlock, many voters are yearning for change in Washington, and that should help Trump," writes Doyle McManus at the Los Angeles Times. "The only thing we know right now is that, at this moment, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are essentially in a dead heat," writes Anthony Zurcher at the BBC. "And Mr. Trump has made a lot of pundits and prognosticators look foolish over the past year."