UPDATE: 9:20 a.m. EDT -- Desite
the growing chorus of Republican leaders and pundits urging Texas Sen.
Ted Cruz to drop out of the race if he doesn't win Indiana Tuesday
night, Cruz says he is looking ahead to California and other upcoming
contests.
David Wasserman of FiveThirtyEight.com
deemed the Indiana primary "a desperate last stand for Ted Cruz and the
#NeverTrump movement." "A Cruz loss in Indiana means lights out,"
long-time Republican strategist Scott Reed told Politico. "Game, set,
match."
But Cruz insisted
over the weekend that it's going to come down to California's primary
on June 7. "We are all in," he said. "We are going to be competing for
all 172 delegates in California and in all 53 congressional districts.
It's going to be a battle on the ground,
district-by-district-by-district."
Cruz said "no one is getting to 1,237." That's how many delegates are needed for a candidate to win the presidential nomination.
UPDATE: 9:05 a.m. EDT -- Indiana voters are also weighing in Tuesday
on a handful of important local races. The 2nd District congressional
race between incumbent Jackie Walorski and Jeff Petermann on the
Republican side and Lynn Coleman and Douglas Carpenter on the Democratic
side could shape the future of the U.S. House, while the Senate primary
race between U.S. Reps. Marlin Stutzman and Todd Young will see the
winner battle U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, a Democrat who is unopposed, in
November. They are competing to succeed retiring Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind.
UPDATE: 8:48 a.m. EDT -- Surrogates
for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, including his vice presidential running mate,
Carly Fiorina, and his wife, Heidi, met with voters in Indiana Tuesday
morning to encourage them to vote for the Republican presidential
candidate.
UPDATE: 8:09 a.m. EDT -- “A few technical issues” were reported in at least one county when voting began at 6 a.m. in Indiana, an election worker told IndyStar, but all polls were operational shortly thereafter. Social media reports indicated
a heavy voter turnout as many officials had expected ahead of Tuesday’s
primary. Ballots cast ahead of the election hit record highs, with more
than 270,000 voters, local media reported.
Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, has
maintained a lead in opinion polls in the state for months. There are 57
delegates at stake in the state for Republicans. Polls show Hillary
Clinton with a slight lead over Bernie Sanders in the state, where 83
delegates are at stake.
UPDATE: 7:34 a.m. EDT --
Donald Trump continues to surpass expectations, achieving milestone
after milestone in his presidential campaign. Tuesday was no different,
as the GOP front-runner reached a new polling high
among Republicans, securing 56 percent support of Party members,
Politico reported. Just last week Trump's support among Republicans sat
at 50 percent.
The new poll's findings underscore Trump's
surging popularity as he gets closer to clinching the Republican
presidential nomination. His next closest rival candidate, Texas Sen.
Ted Cruz, only registered 22 percent support, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich
placed a distant third with 14 percent.
Along with the new poll came more damning news
for Kasich's campaign: 58 percent of Republicans want to see him
suspend his campaign. Even further, polling shows voters are not happy
with the campaigns of Kasich and Cruz teaming up in order to prevent
Trump from reaching the number of delegates needed for the nomination.
Original story:
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump was
poised to win the Republican presidential primary election in Indiana
Tuesday, putting him closer to the GOP nomination amid increasingly
frantic efforts by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and party leaders to keep
The Donald off the general election ballot in November.
Trump has led opinion polls in Indiana for
months, with the state now being seen as Cruz’s last hope in stopping
him from reaching the 1,237 delegates needed to win on the first ballot
at the Republican National Convention in July. There are 57 delegates
at stake in Indiana’s winner-take-all contest.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence threw his backing
behind Cruz last week, but such endorsments have done little to sway
voters in recent primaries, and it’s unclear how well Cruz will perform
in the balloting. Pence also slipped in a few nice words about Trump
while announcing his endorsment, a move that may have confused undecided
voters.
“I like and respect all three of the
candidates in the field. I particularly want to commend Trump,” Pence
said at the time, when he noted Trump’s “strong stand for Hoosier
jobs.” The governor added, “I’m grateful for his voice in the national
debate.”
GOP strategist Russ Schriefer, an adviser of
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s campaign before the candidate dropped
out of the presidential race, said Cruz has sought to persuade
Republican leaders and voters that Trump is not the presumptive nominee.
Last week, Cruz named Carly Fiorina as his running mate, an unusual
move in a competitive primary season and a likely sign that Cruz is
attempting to deflate Trump’s overwheming support in California before
the primary in that state June 7.
“Cruz is playing the hand that he has been
dealt as well as he can play it,” Schriefer told the Chicago Tribune.
“Whether it’s real or not, optically it’s smart,” he said.
While Christie ultimately supported Trump
after he exited the 2016 campaign, many GOP leaders, including 2012
presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have urged voters to see Trump as an
ethically challenged chameleon who would cost the party the election in
November. A host of conservative groups spent almost $67 million to run
more than 53,000 attack ads against Trump in recent months to no avail.
In Indiana’s Democratic primary election, U.S.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, like Cruz, may be waging a losing
battle against the party’s front-runner, former U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton. Sanders has said he can pull off a win Tuesday in the
event voter turnout is high. Railed against efforts to move jobs
from Indianapolis to Mexico, he has claimed a victory in the state would
send a message that his fight against corporate “greed” is resonating
with Democratic voters.
“I think symbolically here you have a Midwest
manufacturing state that has prepared to stand up and fight for a
political revolution,” Sanders told IndyStar last week.
Polls show Clinton with a thin lead over
Sanders in Indiana, and the race likely will be close Tuesday. But even a
win for Sanders wouldn’t change the tough road ahead for his
campaign. Clinton has won in most states so far and has built a
commanding lead in delegates and superdelegates, to the point where she
is expected to secure the presidential nomination at the Democratic
National Convention in July.
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