Minutes after the polls closed in Indiana Tuesday, CNN and MSNBC declared Donald Trump the projected winner of the Republican primary in that state.
It was big loss for Ted Cruz of Texas who was betting on a win in Indiana. Cruz doubled down on his last best chance at stopping Donald Trump from becoming the Republican nominee.
“You’re going to see this race change, you’re essentially going to see the primary come to an end,” said GOP consultant, Matt Mackowiak.
Indiana holds 57 Republican delegates, and the winner takes most of those delegates. Trump’s protected victory put him on the cusp of clinching the Republican nomination.
“I think we may begin to see party figures unite behind Trump, surprising figures perhaps major national figures in the party, party officials at the RNC, major donors perhaps,” Mackowiak said.
CNN’s current estimates put Trump at 1044 delegates, 45 of which are unbound. According to those figures, Trump is less than 200 delegates shy of the magic number—1,237 delegates required to win the GOP nomination.
Indiana marked the seventh straight win for Trump.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of pressure on Cruz to drop out,” said GOP consultant,” Mackowiak said
The U.S. Senator from Texas, Cruz, said he planned to stay in the race as long as there is still a viable path to the GOP nomination. Those comments came ahead of Tuesday’s vote. As of 6:30 p.m. Cruz had not commented on the projected results.
Cruz’s only path is through a contested Republican National Convention, but Trump’s projected win in Indiana narrowed that path for Cruz, shrinking hopes of a contested convention.
“Cruz wants to continue this,” Mackowiak said. He also said Cruz was playing for overtime.
“He’s taken a shot from half court to try to get to overtime.”
Cruz pulled out all of the stops ahead of the Indiana Primary.
“He struck this unusual bargain with Kasich he announced his Vice Presidential running mate,” Mackowiak said.
The Republican consultant said Cruz’s loss is nothing short of an embarrassment but not unexpected. Early polls put Trump 15 points ahead of Cruz in Indiana.
“He’s choking like a dog because he’s losing so badly,” Trump said ahead of the Tuesday’s vote.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were battling over 83 delegates. At the time of this post the Democratic race was still too close to call.
Sanders’ campaign expects the race will end in a contested convention, based on the number of super delegates, those delegates are not bound by any primary or caucus results. Like the Republican’s unbound delegates, super delegates can support the candidate of their choice at the national conventions.
