First off, brand new Monmouth poll about the New York primary on April 19th.

Right now hometown boy Donald Trump leads with 52%.

John Kasich, 25%.

Senator Ted Cruz, 17%.

If that holds, Mr. Trump will get most of the New York delegates and he will once again have momentum.

The disadvantage for Mr. Cruz is the New York values debate.

You'll remember that in January the senator said this:

CRUZ: “Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media.”  

Now Donald Trump is using that statement to hammer Ted Cruz:

TRUMP: “Do you remember during the debate when he started lecturing me on ‘New York Values’ like we're no good?  Like we’re no good. [CROWD BOOS] ((EDIT)) And I’ve got this guy standing over there looking at me talking about New York values with scorn in his face.”

The truth is that New York City values are very left wing.

But the rest of the state lines up fairly conservative, although not at the level of Mr. Cruz.

However, as in any state New Yorkers are sensitive, so the senator has to overcome his initial New York values comments.

I your humble correspondent am a born and raised New Yorker.

But I've lived all over the country – Dallas, Denver, Portland, Oregon, Boston, Miami.

And I can tell you that New York is a different kind of place, especially because there are nearly 20 million people in the Big Apple metropolitan area.

With that many folks you have to be more aggressive, and some around the country consider that to be rude.

On the political front the Democratic Party is firmly in control of New York State, very similar to California.

Even though Donald Trump is likely to win the Republican primary here, he will have a very tough time in New York State up against Hillary Clinton in the general election.

As Talking Points reported last night, New York is a machine state and the Democrat machine dominates.

As for Ted Cruz, he is a conservative Texan who now has to convince jaded New Yorkers that he is not denigrating them, that he was simply pointing out Donald Trump's past history of giving donations to people like Hillary Clinton and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

But as we pointed out, Mr. Trump did that as a real estate guy and in this city business people have to spread the money around if they want to get things done.

Talking Points believes that Donald Trump is a conservative, although not nearly as right wing as Mr. Cruz is.

Bottom line, if Ted Cruz wants to keep Donald Trump below 50% in New York, he's got a lot of hard work to do.

And that's the memo.