A sign reads Vote Here is seen outside a polling station in Manhattan, New York, April 19, 2016. New York's presidential primary kicked off on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)
"To use sports parlance, it was nice to have a large home win after a rough stretch on the road. It shifts attention away from the narrative of Cruz poaching away delegates, and it leads to further primaries that should be friendly to Trump in other northeast states," Nahaffee said.
Still, Zelizer wrote Wednesday on CNN.com that the road ahead will be tough for Trump even after his big win in New York, as a number of his weaknesses have been exposed.
Zelizer argued that Trump has relied thus far on a media campaign, contending that on-the-ground organization -- such as volunteers canvassing localities to get the word out about Trump -- has always been the New York tycoon's Achilles' heel.
Another weakness is the controversy around one Trump supporter who sucker punched a protester at a Trump rally. Instead of condemning the action, Trump initially offered to pay the assailant's bills, Zelizer noted.
"By failing to condemn the violence, he has not helped his cause," Zelizer argued, adding that Trump's poll numbers have been falling since the incident.
At the same time, Clinton's strong victory puts her in decisive position for the Democratic Party's nomination, West said.
"She vanquished Sanders even though he spent several million dollars more than she did on campaign advertising. She beat him in many voter categories and even polled even with him among white voters, which had been a tough demographic for her. It is hard to see how Sanders will be able to overcome her delegate lead," West said.
Mahaffee said Clinton's win allows her to argue that the momentum and mathematics are on her side to win the nomination.
While Sanders was able to draw crowds, in a closed primary without independents and new voters who have flocked to Sanders, Clinton was able to win with strong support from long-time Democrats, minorities and women, he said.
For her part, Clinton also needed a decisive victory over Sanders, who has in recent months shocked experts and pundits who underestimated how popular he would be with young, while liberal voters, who make up his main support base.
Sanders' popularity leading up to New York stemmed from a mix of what critics called a weak Clinton campaign and an unusually dissatisfied population of millennials, who continue to feel the sting of the 2008 economic downturn.
The group has a high rate of unemployment and is saddled with large amounts of student debt -- around 35,000 U.S. dollars per person, according to some estimates -- far higher than the same age group a decade ago. Sanders' anti-establishment message has appealed to this crowd.
Nevertheless, the New York loss will hit the Sanders campaign hard.
"It means that Sanders barely has any real mathematical chance of winning. So this will help nurture a media discussion that is beneficial to (Clinton's) candidacy and in terms of the numbers almost impossible for Sanders to win," Zelizer said.
