Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of the Democratic primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania after polls closed Tuesday evening.
Several outlets called the race in Maryland in favor of Clinton immediately after polls closed at 8 P.M. EST Tuesday, and she was declared the winner in Delaware and Pennsylvania less than an hour later. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) edged Clinton out in Rhode Island.
Clinton also narrowly beat Sanders in Connecticut, NBC and Fox News projected at approximately 10:30 P.M. Clinton held a 2-point lead over Sanders with about 80 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night. The race was initially too close to call.
The primary race in Connecticut remained too close to call after 9 P.M. Less than 3 percentage points separated the two candidates in the state with more than one-third of votes counted Tuesday night.
Clinton was viewed as the favorite in most of the states in which voters headed to the polls Tuesday in the so-called "Acela primary," which refers to the train service that connects Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Voters in these five states cast ballots in Democratic primaries on Tuesday in which 384 delegates were up for grabs.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and his campaign advisers planned to assess how his bid for president would continue following voting on Tuesday, according to a New York Times report published hours before polls closed.
"If we are sitting here and there’s no sort of mathematical way to do it, we will be upfront about that," Sanders campaign senior strategist Tad Devine told the Times.
"If we have a really good day, we are going to continue to talk about winning most of the pledged delegates because we will be on a path toward it. If we don’t get enough today to make it clear that we can do it by the end, it’s going to be hard to talk about it. That’s not going to be a credible path. Instead, we will talk about what we intend to do between now and the end and how we can get there."
According to recent polling, Clinton held considerable leads over Sanders in both Maryland and Pennsylvania. Both the Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed Clinton for the Democratic nomination ahead of the primaries in their respective states this month.
While polling out of Delaware has been sparse, a Gravis poll released this month showed Sanders behind Clinton by seven points.
The primary in Connecticut was bound to be somewhat competitive, though Clinton maintained a slight lead over Sanders in polls leading up to the primary and was likely to benefit from momentum following her resounding win in New York one week prior. A Public Policy Polling survey conducted last week showed the Vermont senator within two points of the former secretary of state.
Clinton was also likely to benefit from the fact that Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania are all closed-primary states, meaning that only registered Democrats can vote in them. Sanders, who was elected to the Senate as an independent, has benefited from unaffiliated voters turning out to vote for him.
Rhode Island presented the clearest opportunity for Sanders to upset Clinton on Tuesday. Polls have foreshadowed a close race, with most showing Clinton with a slight edge over the Vermont senator. In Rhode Island, voters unaffiliated with a particular party can choose to vote in the Democratic primary.
Voting took place Tuesday one week after Clinton celebrated a double-digit victory in her home state of New York, which ended Sanders’ seven-state winning streak and allowed Clinton to increase her lead in delegates.
Still, Sanders has pledged to remain in the race despite Clinton’s edge, vowing over the weekend to "take the fight all the way to California."
Sanders has made attacking Clinton for her ties to Wall Street a focal point of his campaign and has built substantial grassroots support, though Clinton has long been viewed as the likely nominee.
The Clinton campaign has continually expressed confidence that the former secretary of state will capture the 2,383 delegates necessary to win the nomination by the end of the primary.