There's A Lot At Stake In The Empire State Primary

April 19 will be a huge day for all candidates in the race for the 2016 presidential nomination. New York will hold its primaries, and the state has a large number of delegates up for grabs. We could see Sec. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump expand on their leads, or we could watch Sen. Bernie Sanders cut into the delegate gap on the Democratic side and see the Republicans inch closer to a brokered convention, should Donald Trump fail to get a solid majority of the state's delegates. So, how many delegates does New York have?

As with every state, the number is different for Democrats and Republicans. Josh Putnam at Frontloading HQ reported that Democrats have 247 pledged delegates at stake in New York, and Republicans will compete for 95 delegates. The only primary state remaining with more delegates than New York is California, which votes on June 7.

There is no inevitable nominee at this point for either the Republican or Democratic nomination. And New York won't decide anything. But it's an important state for Trump to win in his effort to secure the 1,237 delegates he would need to clinch the nomination; if he falls short of that majority number, we'll have ourselves a brokered convention in July.

NBC News reported that Trump has won 45 percent of delegates in contests leading up to New York, and he'll need 61 percent of those remaining in order to reach 1,237. If he doesn't perform very well in his home state on April 19, that won't exactly bode well going forward. Real Clear Politics' polling average shows Trump just over 50 percent in New York. He could get almost all the delegates if he wins the statewide election by a majority and wins in most congressional districts by a majority.

No other Republican candidate has a shot at reaching 1,237 delegates, so on that side, the race is more about whether Trump gets them or not. On the Democratic side, we have an actual race between two candidates going on. Sanders trails Clinton by about 200 delegates going into New York (Washington, where Sanders won big, has yet to allocate its many congressional district delegates, so an exact number isn't in).

New York is an interesting state for the Democratic contenders, because it's both of their home states, in a sense. Sanders grew up in Brooklyn, while Clinton is a current resident of New York state and served as its senator from 2001 to 2009. She's held a fairly steady lower-double-digit lead over Sanders in the state. Since the Democratic party awards its delegates proportionally, both are likely to walk away with many delegates.

How much, if at all, Clinton's lead is narrowed or expanded is something to watch for. A loss in New York wouldn't spell doom for Sanders, but it would leave Clinton in a more comfortable position going forward. On the other hand, a win for Sanders, or even a near-tie, would be big both for the campaign's momentum and for preventing the delegate gap between he and Clinton from widening significantly.

Will we see a brokered Republican convention in July? Will Sanders catch up to Clinton? New York won't answer these questions, but it's an important step on the path to those answers.