Donald Trump Donald TrumpMessage to Trump: Poor people have the answers to solving poverty Report: Trump considers shutting down Council on Women and Girls 'Morning Joe' hosts: Trump fears women MORE swept all five states up for grabs in Tuesday's GOP primaries, giving his hopes for winnin the party's presidential nomination a huge boost. 
 
 The big victories for Trump, who topped 60 percent in several states, make it much less likely that rivals Ted Cruz Ted CruzThe party of Lincoln has no soul — the GOP and its toxic healthcare bill Overnight Healthcare: Conservatives seek changes to Senate bill | GOP may keep ObamaCare tax in health bill | Trump taps new surgeon general Conservatives seek changes to Senate healthcare bill MORE and John Kasich will force the race to a contested convention this summer in Cleveland. 
 
 Trump called on both of his rivals to drop out of the race and pivoted to the general election, where he said Hillary Clinton Hillary Rodham ClintonThe party of Lincoln has no soul — the GOP and its toxic healthcare bill EMILY's List sees female candidate boom in Trump era GOP investigation sought connection between Clinton’s emails and Russia: report MORE would be an easier opponent to defeat than the more than a dozen Republicans he has topped in the GOP race so far. 
 
 “I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely," he said at a press conference at his New York hotel. "Sen. Cruz and Gov. Kasich should really get out of the race, they have no path to victory and honestly they should get out of the race, we should heal the Republican party, bring the Republican Party back together. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. These two guys can’t win, there’s no path," he continued. "So why would I change? If you have a football team and you are winning and you get to a super bowl, you don’t change your quarterback." “As far as I’m concerned, it’s over. These two guys can’t win, there’s no path," he continued. "So why would I change? If you have a football team and you are winning and you get to a super bowl, you don’t change your quarterback." 
 
 Cruz, who came to the cameras from Indiana before any of the polls closed, promised to fight on, and said the race would now move to territory more favorable to his campaign. 
 
 “Tonight, Donald Trump is expected to have a good night. He’s likely to win some states and the media is going to have heart palpitations this evening,” Cruz said. “And the media is going to say the race is over. The media is going to say Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. 
 
 “Everyone of them are ready for Hillary,” he continued before arguing that he is the only candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, in a general election. There were 118 bound delegates at stake in contests in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island, and Trump is poised to take a strong majority of these by virtue of winning the popular vote in each state. 
 
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 Trump will get all 17 bound delegates in Pennsylvania, as well as the 16 up for grabs in winner-take-all Delaware.Trump's victories in Maryland and Connecticut make it likely he’ll take a majority of the 66 delegates for those two states, as the bulk are allocated in winner-take-all contests at the congressional district level. 
 
 Trump’s haul will be limited in Rhode Island, which awards its delegates on a strictly proportional basis. But the GOP front-runner will still take more delegates than Cruz or Kasich. 
 
 Trump entered Tuesday with 845 delegates, needing to win about 58 percent of the remaining 674 still up for grabs to get to 1,237 delegates, the threshold for clinching the nomination. 
 
 The sweep means Trump is likely to lower the percentage of delegates he needs to win the rest of the way to get to 1,237. 
 
 GOP candidates now go to Indiana, which is viewed as the latest hurdle to Trump by his rivals. If Trump wins the state, he’s almost certain to become the nominee. 
 
 To try to hold him off, Cruz and Kasich entered into an alliance in Indiana, with Kasich agreeing to pull his resources from the state to allow for a one-on-one contest between Trump and Cruz. 
 
 Polls show Trump with a narrow lead over the Texas senator one week before voters head to the polls. 
 
 Cruz and Kasich both hope that if Trump doesn’t get 1,237 delegates, a GOP convention could settle on a different nominee. Cruz believes he can win enough support on a second ballot to become the GOP nominee. 
 
 The Trump campaign has thus far struggled with the inside game of getting supporters elected as delegates. Cruz has routed Trump time and again on that front, even in states Trump handily won in the popular vote. 
 
 The latest test for Trump will come in Pennsylvania, where 54 of the state’s delegates are elected directly by voters and unbound to any candidate. 
 
 
 
 Many of those candidates have already said they'll support whoever wins their district, at least on the first ballot at the convention, but Cruz has been working hard to ensure his supporters are selected as delegates. That could help him on subsequent ballots at a contested convention. 
 
 
 
 The Trump campaign had two House members — Pennsylvania Reps. Tom Marino and Lou Barletta Lou BarlettaCongress poised to prohibit airlines from forcibly removing customers GOP congressman: Cut back on town halls in wake of shooting Overnight Finance: Fed raises rates for second time in 2017 | GOP weighs keeping ObamaCare taxes | Tax reform becomes Wall Street obsession MORE — working on the ground to get Trump's operations up to speed. 
 
 
 
 The Trump campaign passed around a delegate slate card at polling stations across the state, urging voters to select candidates that have already pledged their support to the GOP front-runner. ||||| Donald Trump declared himself the “presumptive nominee” of the Republican Party after he won five Northeastern states in a self-described “massive landslide” that dealt a serious setback to the anti-Trump forces pushing for a contested convention. 
 
 Trump romped across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut. His smallest margin of victory was roughly 30 percentage points; he led in two states by about 40 points. As of late Tuesday, Trump led in every single county across all five states. And most crucially, he swept at least 105 of the 118 bound delegates available. 
 
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 "I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely," the real estate mogul said in his victory speech at Trump Tower in New York. “As far as I am concerned, it’s over,” he declared. 
 
 It’s not, at least mathematically. While Trump has more than 75 percent of the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination, he must still beat Ted Cruz and John Kasich in the upcoming primaries, most crucially Indiana and California. 
 
 But Trump declared himself on an unstoppable path — past his opponents, who he chided as spoilers and sore losers, and through a political system he’s repeatedly decried as rigged. 
 
 “The best way to beat the system is to have evenings like this," Trump said. 
 
 Trump’s speech also previewed the bare-knuckled brawl that a Trump vs. Hillary Clinton general election would be, ending his 35-minute address and press conference by declaring, "The only card she’s got going is the woman’s card.” 
 
 “If Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote,” Trump said. 
 
 Trump had entered the night with 845 of the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination. He ended with at least 950. 
 
 Cruz, who began the evening trailing far behind, with 559 delegates, ended the night mathematically eliminated from winning on the first ballot at the national convention. Kasich, with only 148 delegates, was eliminated long ago. 
 
 Trump’s dominance Tuesday was thorough. 
 
 In Maryland, Trump won “very conservative” voters — the group that has been the mainstay of Cruz’s support — 52 percent to 36 percent, according to exit polls. He carried 50 percent of “very conservative” voters in Connecticut, to Cruz’s 32 percent. And in Pennsylvania, Trump crushed Cruz among evangelical voters, 57 percent to 30 percent. 
 
 He won every bound delegate available in Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania. 
 
 And in Pennsylvania, where 54 unbound delegates were elected directly at the ballot box, Trump looked to pad his lead, with Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute counting 27 Trump supporters among the leaders. Many delegate candidates have informally pledged themselves to the winner of their districts, which was Trump across the state. 
 
 With his wins, he called on the GOP to unite around him. “We should heal the Republican Party,” Trump said. 
 
 But his opponents showed no signs of giving up. Anticipating Trump’s big night Tuesday, Kasich and Cruz struck a surprise deal over the weekend in which Kasich promised not to campaign in Indiana, which votes next week, and Cruz vowed not to compete in Oregon and New Mexico. 
 
 While Kasich suffered another miserable primary night, his campaign pledged that he would trudge onward. “Never wavering from his commitment to a campaign focused on optimism and strength, John Kasich will continue making his supporters proud,” his team tweeted. 
 
 Cruz has already been in Indiana for days. “Tonight this campaign moves back to Indiana,” Cruz said at a rally as the polls closed and before the depth of his losses was apparent. He finished third in four of the five states. 
 
 Trump’s string of wins came at a tumultuous time for his campaign, which has been riven with internal strife since Paul Manafort was hired as his convention manager and quickly seized power and control from Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s original campaign manager. 
 
 Manafort has tried to professionalize an operation that had been losing to Cruz in the battle for individual delegates even while winning states. Manafort hired Rick Wiley, Scott Walker’s former campaign manager, as political director, and Trump’s old national field director, Stuart Jolly, resigned amid the shake-up. 
 
 But Lewandowski, who guided Trump from longshot to frontrunner, has pushed backed against the idea that the campaign needed fixing. “Donald Trump will never change,” Lewandowski said Tuesday afternoon on CNN before the polls closed. “The motto of the campaign has been and continues to be: Let Mr. Trump be Mr. Trump.” 
 
 That was apparent in Trump’s election night speech in which he jabbed at Clinton, Cruz and Kasich and wandered far off script, just as he has throughout the campaign. 
 
 It’s not clear what Trump’s sweep will mean for Indiana, where polls show the race is tighter. Momentum has proved elusive in the Republican contest so far, ever since Trump came roaring back in New Hampshire following Cruz’s Iowa victory. 
 
 Three weeks ago, Cruz hailed his win over Trump in Wisconsin as a “turning point” — but it only marked a turn back in Trump’s direction as the real estate mogul walloped Kasich and Cruz in his home state. 
 
 Trump spoke Tuesday like a man who had taken back control of his own political destiny. 
 
 "I’m not looking to go second, third, fourth, fifth,” he said, dismissing talk of an open convention and multiple ballots. 
 
 He’s looking to win.
– "It's over," Donald Trump proclaimed Tuesday night after sweeping all five primaries by huge margins. "I consider myself the presumptive nominee, absolutely," he said in a speech at Trump Tower in New York, per the Washington Post. "Honestly, Sen. Cruz and Gov. Kasich should really get out of the race. They have no path to victory at all. We should heal the Republican Party, bring the Republican Party together. And I'm a unifier." He described the wins as a "massive landslide," and it wasn't hyperbole: He scored more than 60% of the vote in Rhode Island and Delaware and at least 55% in Maryland, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Politico notes that his dominance extended to evangelicals, who chose him over Ted Cruz 57% to 30% in Pennsylvania. With 118 bound delegates at stake, Trump won at least 105—putting him around three-quarters of the way to the necessary 1,237—with five going to John Kasich and one to Ted Cruz. His haul includes all 17 bound delegates in Pennsylvania, though the state's 54 unbound delegates could complicate his path to the nomination, the Hill reports. In his victory speech, Trump attacked Hillary Clinton instead of his GOP rivals, calling her "crooked" and saying the "only card she has is the woman's card." "If Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5% of the vote," he said. (Cruz, meanwhile, was in Indiana, where he made an embarrassing gaffe in the gym where Hoosiers was filmed.)