Candidates come home as, in a rarity, NY primary matters

New York is a coveted prize, offering the most delegates of any contest left on the primary calendar until California's primary June 7.

[...] the two leading hometown candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who have long eyed New York as a bulwark against their opposition, now both need the state to provide a bounce-back victory after some disheartening defeats.

[...] she is turning to local political organizations, unions and a vast statewide network of supportive elected officials to ward off what would be a humiliating defeat that could send the Democratic establishment into a panic even though she'd still possess a significant delegate lead.

For Trump, the campaign's move to the city where his name is a fixture on apartment buildings, hotels and even Central Park's ice skating rink, gives him a chance to shake off a resounding defeat to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin.

[...] many Democrats across the state rallied around unknown law professor Zephyr Teachout, who with little money or organization, mounted a challenge to Cuomo from the left and ended up with a shocking 33 percent of the vote.

Cuomo two years ago faced a stiffer-than-expected general election campaign from the poorly financed Westchester County executive Rob Astorino, who in a losing effort actually drew more votes from outside New York City than the sitting governor, demonstrating the dramatic shift in the state's political landscape outside the five boroughs.

In a possible general election contest, a Trump campaign would also likely target the disaffected voter living in hardscrabble upstate cites like Rochester and Buffalo, as well as wide swaths of the northern and western parts of the state that have been mired in economic doldrums for decades.