Clinton, Trump tipped to win as New York votes

Polls show that Clinton -- the former secretary of state, first lady and New York senator -- has a double-digit lead over her Brooklyn-born challenger, Bernie Sanders, even if nationwide surveys put them neck-and-neck.

Trump, the brash Manhattan billionaire whose controversial campaign has appalled the Republican establishment, is well ahead of his evangelical rival Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

The tycoon is banking on a big home state victory in his quest to sew up the nomination before Republican grandees can anoint another candidate at the party convention in July.

Turnout was steady at polling stations visited by AFP in Manhattan and Brooklyn, where New Yorkers cast their ballots on the way to work. Polling stations remain open until 9:00 pm (0100 GMT Wednesday).

"I voted for Hillary Clinton because I think she's got the record across all of the issues that matter to me," said Rachel Karph, 30, an arts producer who works in theater and lives in Brooklyn.

Rights for women, rights for minorities, improving pay for working Americans and international issues were the most important, she said.

"I thought about Bernie Sanders quite a bit but I felt more comfortable voting for someone who has already a track record," she said. "I feel like Hillary is more of a pragmatist."

With both races for the White House nomination so competitive, it is the most consequential New York primary in decades in the country's fourth largest state that is home to a vastly diverse electorate.

Independents are barred from participating in what is a closed primary. Only New York's 5.8 million Democrats and 2.7 million Republicans who registered by last October are eligible to vote.

Three of the candidates lay claim to calling New York home: Trump, who has never lived anywhere else; Clinton, who was twice elected the state's US senator; and Sanders, who was raised in Brooklyn.

"We all have a stake in America, that is what this election is about. Please, come out! Vote tomorrow," Clinton said Monday on a whirlwind of canvassing to become the country's first woman president.

- 'Rigged system' -

A big victory in the state, which chose Clinton over Barack Obama in the 2008 primary, would stall the momentum generated by her self-styled Democratic socialist rival, who has won seven out of the last eight state nominating contests.

Clinton holds 1,791 delegates compared to 1,115 for Sanders, according to a CNN tally -- putting her on course to scoop the 2,383 needed to secure a spot on the party's presidential ticket.

Only California has more than the 247 Democratic delegates and 44 superdelegates up for grabs in New York.

The 74-year-old Sanders -- who has galvanized a youth movement with his call for health care as a right, free college education and campaign finance reform -- needs a win to keep alive his hopes of winning the presidency.

But on Monday he also signaled he could be willing to swing behind Clinton should she win the nomination, provided she moves further to the left on causes that he has highlighted.

"It's a two-way street," he said. "The Clinton people are going to have to say, 'You know, maybe Bernie has a point,'" he told CNN.

On the Republican side, Trump hopes that winning the majority of New York's 95 delegates can lessen his chances of facing a contested nomination at the party convention in Cleveland.

Republicans in rural areas and fallen manufacturing cities have warmed to his populist message despite a backlash among party elites fearful that his insults of women, Mexicans and Muslims make him unelectable.

The 69-year-old tycoon leads his home-state polls at 53.1 percent, with Kasich and Cruz languishing at 22.8 and 18.1 percent, respectively, according to RealClearPolitics.

Addressing a raucous rally in Buffalo, Trump attacked his rivals, gave a rousing defense of "New York values," which Cruz has insulted, and blasted party rules as he has lost recent delegate hauls to the Texas senator.

"It is a rigged and corrupt system but we're going to get there and I believe we're going to do it much more easily than people think," Trump told the roaring crowd.

"No New Yorker can vote for Ted Cruz."