I cannot overstate this: Indiana is an utterly crucial
primary in Donald Trump’s quest to win the GOP nomination outright within the
primary season and thus avoid a potential convention fight.
Over a month ago, when we created the “Trump Tracker,” we
put Indiana in Trump’s column – with him winning 37 of the state’s 57 delegates
– even though there was absolutely no polling at all to guide us. The logic was simple: Trump had already won Kentucky, Illinois and
Michigan, losing only Ohio (to hometown John Kasich) among the states that
border Indiana. Since that time, there
has been a plethora of polls -- seven in April -- and Trump has been ahead of
Cruz in six of them, mostly in the high single digits.
Cruz, of course, has pulled out all the stops in Indiana,
knowing precisely how crucial that state’s primary is to his hopes to deny
Trump the magic 1,237. First he struck a deal with
John Kasich, with Kasich agreeing (grumpily) to not expend resources in Indiana
if Cruz would agree to the same in New Mexico and Oregon. This was a strange deal on the surface, given
that Indiana is a neighbor of Ohio and shares a strong industrial base, thus
appearing to be ripe for Kasich, while Cruz had been doing very well out west. But the deal was struck, and Cruz moved on to
his second unconventional gambit, naming Carly Fiorina as his VP. No nominee has named a VP choice in the
primary season since Ronald Reagan announced Richard Schweiker his choice in
his 1976 losing bid (to Gerald Ford).
Cruz obviously hoped to magnify Trump’s weakness among women, as well as
unleash Fiorina, a superb attacker, on The Donald.
Alongside these rather desperate strategic moves – in part
designed to deflect the attention from Trump’s landslide sweep of five eastern
primaries last week – were signs that the GOP establishment was not exactly swarming
to the Cruz cause. John Boehner –
remember him? – referred to Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh” and “the most
miserable son of a bitch” he’d ever worked with. Nor was the reconciliation to a Trump
nomination going much better; several notable VP candidates all but slammed the
door on the possibility, including Governors Nikki Haley of South Carolina and
Susana Martinez of New Mexico.
Since the “deal announcement,” Kasich has shown signs of eroding
support, dropping from the 16-20 range down to the 9-13 range in the latest two
polls. But this seems to be benefiting
Trump more than Cruz; Trump is now in the 44-49% range, up from the 40%-ish
range he had been in. Cruz, if anything,
is fading a bit from the 35% range to the low 30’s or even high 20’s.
Indiana has 57 delegates, and awards them on a
winner-take-all basis at the statewide level for 30 delegates and 27 at the Congressional
district level.
On the Democratic side, where it is all but “game over,”
Hillary Clinton has led in every Indiana April poll, by a range of 3 to 13
points, on average by 7.
BTRTN
predicts that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will each win in Indiana, Trump
quite handily, Clinton by a closer margin.
If Trump wins Indiana, it is all but over. California is still out there, with its 172
delegates, on June 7. But Trump is up
over Cruz in California by an average of over 20 points in the last two polls,
and a win in Indiana would certainly do nothing but good on the momentum front.
So, America, better get used to Clinton versus Trump, two
of the least popular candidates, if not the least, ever to top their parties’
tickets.
And for my moderate GOP friends, time to start assessing
your options. When George Will has come
out against your party’s candidate (“Donald
Trump’s damage to the Republican party, although already extensive, has barely
begun”), you know the notion of rallying around the party’s nominee will
be sorely tested.
Indiana
|
BTRTN
Prediction
|
Trump
|
53
|
Cruz
|
35
|
Kasich
|
12
|
Indiana
|
BTRTN
Prediction
|
Clinton
|
53
|
Sanders
|
47
|
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