Trump, Clinton campaign with eye on November

PHILADELPHIA - As today's quintuple primaries arrive, the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns appear to be moving in tandem for the first time.

Front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are targeting each other with an eye on November's general election and mostly are ignoring their party challengers. Behind them, their rivals still aiming are at the front-runners in an effort to gain ground before the primary season spirals further out of their control.

Polls suggest voters in Pennsylvania, the biggest of today's primaries, are lining up behind Clinton and Trump much as voters in New York did last week - in big numbers.

Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republicans Ted Cruz and John Kasich have given no sign they intend to leave the race before the final primaries in June. But losses in Pennsylvania and the four other Tuesday primaries would be another major blow to the underdog candidates, both in momentum lost and in the delegates each needs to rebound.

'They are struggling to get a narrative that trumps the notion that the other two are inevitable,” said longtime Pennsylvania pollster G. Terry Madonna, whose surveys have Clinton and Trump holding double-digit leads in Pennsylvania.

After an intense focus on New York before its primary last Tuesday, the race has fractured geographically as candidates careened through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island. But the themes have remained constant in all five states.

Clinton's more assertive criticisms of Sanders turned in recent days into a bland mention of his past vote to give immunity to gun makers and sellers from lawsuits stemming from the misuse of their guns. That issue has salience given a crime wave in Philadelphia, home to a large proportion of the state's Democratic voters.

Like Clinton, Trump has presented himself as a familiar figure and one who can best improve the region's economy.

'Who knows Pennsylvania better than Donald Trump? I went to school here, and it's a great state,” the graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school told supporters in Harrisburg.