What you missed this weekend

But the western wrangling looks minor from New York, which is celebrating its status as a contested presidential state for the first time in decades ahead of its looming and all-important April 19 primary that has even Sen. Ted Cruz stumping in the boroughs and proclaiming his New York values.

While Queens-born Trump tries to take home all 95 of New York’s GOP delegates, Westchester resident Clinton, who says she’s a Yankee fan, and Bernie Sanders, a former Brooklyn Dodgers fan, continued their sort of subway series brawl for New York votes.

Trump trounced in grassroots delegate hunt:

Trump spent much time complaining this weekend about how his party awards delegates but by all appearances too little time working to learn those rules and translate his dominance of the GOP primary process to lock down delegates. His failure was cast in stark relief Saturday when Cruz won all of Colorado’s 37 delegates, in part by taking New Yorker Woody Allen’s advice and showing up. Trump bailed on a speech at the state’s convention after realizing he was losing there.

“The Trump campaign has done little to no effort at organization to try to get their delegates to the meeting, much less in the position to be able to get elected from this process,” said Ryan Call, a former Colorado GOP chairman.

Trump has “failed to build any legitimate ground game or campaign infrastructure in the key states,” Call said. “You can’t show up and claim the dog ate your homework and bluster your way through a presentation you haven’t prepped for.”

Local fights in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina handed Trump other setbacks in recent days. Trump remains able to win big primaries, as he is set to do in New York, but has been consistently outworked in local fights for delegates that require greater organization.

Trump’s private response has been an effort to shake up his campaign, so far to little apparent avail. His public response has been to threaten to bolt the GOP and bitterly bemoan a nominating process that has failed to master the art of dealing with. On Sunday, a top Trump campaign aide accused the Cruz campaign of “Gestapo tactics” in the delegate fight. He did not specify how Nazi secret police tactics apply to local Republican delegate elections held in public.

Cruz has also installed many supporters among Trump’s pledged delegates. That increases odds Cruz can beat Trump on a second ballot or subsequent ballot at the convention, since many delegates are released from their pledges after the first round.

Trump has 743 of the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the Republican nomination without a fight that he appears poorly positioned to win. Trump’s loses leave him in danger of falling short in what he might call a Jordan Spieth or Marco Rubio-like choke.

Why Republicans are in the Bronx

Hence the import of New York, Trump’s home state, where by topping 50 percent and sweeping congressional districts, he could capture nearly all of the state’s 95 GOP delegates.

Trump was upstate Sunday, in Rochester, where he promised to bring back manufacturing jobs “so fast it will make your head spin” by slapping a tariff on goods sold by American companies that move abroad.

Because New York’s primary puts a premium on winning districts, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Cruz are attempting to stop Trump from racking up delegates by chasing Republican votes in New York City. The result is Cruz trying to campaign in overwhelmingly Democratic areas where his past pronouncements have left him wildly unpopular, and attempting retails politics like donning a yarmulke and proclaiming “l’chaim” at a Brooklyn matzoh factory.

Wyoming split favors Clinton:

Sanders won the Wyoming caucus Saturday, claiming about 56 percent of the vote to to Clinton’s 44. But that margin, less than expected, allowed Clinton to split the sparsely populated state’s 14 delegates with Sanders.

Though the delegate count from Wyoming is close to insignificant, Sanders’ failure to gain ground highlights the mathematical miracle he’d need to catch Clinton. She holds a lead of more than 700 delegates, including superdelegates and is most of the way to the 2,383 needed to win the nomination.

Clinton leads in polls in New York, where 291 delegates are up for grabs, and looks likely to romp in high-population eastern states like Maryland and Pennsylvania that dominate the home stretch of the nomination fight. That map and the chance to face either Cruz or Trump in the general election, may explain Clinton’s confidence in events this weekend.

Obama on Fox

Clinton also believes, it appears, that Republican are kidding themselves by hoping an investigation into her use of a private email account while secretary of state will result in an October surprise or any punishment that hurts her candidacy.

In his first interview on Fox News Sunday in years, President Obama said Clinton’s handling of email showed “carelessness.” But Obama dismissed the notion she jeopardized national security and rejected assertions that the Justice Department might face political pressure to soft pedal its investigation.

“I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case,” Obama said. “Full stop. Period.”

Obama offered a more significant criticism of Clinton, indirectly, by saying his biggest mistake as president was failing to plan enought for the aftermath of the overthrow of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Clinton has highlighted her role in advocating regime change in Libya. As secretary of state, she oversaw American planning for the aftermath of the campaign.

In the interview, Obama belittled proposals by Cruz and Trump that they say would target terrorism as un-American.

Cruz’s call for carpet bombing ISIS, which Obama said would kill civilians, and Trump’s support for banning Muslims from entering the country, Obama suggested, represent the kind of fearful reaction that terrorists seek to cause.

“We don’t panic,” Obama said. “We don’t fear.”