Reuters, New York :Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton began setting their sights on November’s general election on Wednesday, with a new poll showing Clinton would handily win such a matchup.Trump’s crushing defeat of Ted Cruz in Tuesday’s party nominating contests in New York tilted the energy in the Republican race back to the front-runner. Clinton’s win over Bernie Sanders, while narrower, broke a string of victories by the democratic socialist and gave her a much-needed lift.Trump’s win marked a rebound from his Wisconsin defeat two weeks ago and set him up for another big night on April 26, when Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland will hold primaries.”Ted Cruz is mathematically out of winning the race,” Trump said Wednesday on Twitter. “Now all he can do is be a spoiler, never a nice thing to do. I will beat Hillary!” Trump, 69, predicted some “amazing weeks” ahead for his campaign.If he and Clinton do go on to secure their respective parties’ nomination for the Nov. 8 election, opinion polls show Clinton with a sizeable lead. A Reuters/Ipsos poll put the former secretary of state ahead by 10 percentage points in a matchup with the billionaire businessman.Cruz, a US senator from Texas, dismissed his rival’s victory in New York as a predictable win.”Upon winning his home state, Donald, with a characteristic display of humility, declared this race is over,” he said during a Pennsylvania campaign stop.Cruz, who has argued that Trump would lose the election for Republicans, added with scathing irony: “Manhattan has spoken, and if the rest of the voters would quietly go home now and allow him to give the general election to Hillary, all would be better.”Trump, a former reality TV star, has adapted a more measured tone in recent days and appears to be trying to heal wounds inflicted by a campaign that has alarmed many in the Republican establishment. He sent campaign advisers to a Republican National Committee meeting in Hollywood, Florida starting on Wednesday.Trump’s haul of most of New York’s 95 delegates moved him closer to the 1,237 needed to win the nomination outright. Anything short of that will lead to a contested convention when Republicans hold their national conclave July 18-21 in Cleveland.
