Dear Commons Community,

The state presidential primaries are over.  Barring challenges at their respective conventions, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be the Democratic and Republican nominees.  Yesterday, Trump won all of the Republican state primary elections.  Clinton won New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota while Bernie Sanders won Montana and South Dakota. Clinton was leading comfortably in California. 

Clinton and Trump gave victory speeches last night that were designed to unify their parties.  It was announced by Politico that Sanders would be laying off at least half of his staff.

Most Americans are ready for the next phase of the presidential election as the two major candidates will now go head to head in presenting their cases to the electorate.  Trump has by far the more daunting task given the country’s demographics and his tendency to make comments that alienate groups of voters.  Clinton’s major concern has to be any adverse developments in the FBI investigation of the use of her home computer for state department business. From now until the party conventions, there will also be great interest in who the candidates will select as their vice presidential running mates.

Let the general election begin!

Tony