Ted Cruz has described Tuesday’s Indiana primary as “the one thing that stands between us and plunging over the cliff.” The Texas senator and others trying to block Donald Trump from the Republican presidential nomination may be about to fall in.
The outcome in Indiana, where polls began to open at 6 a.m. Eastern time and will finish closing at 7 p.m., could yield a deciding moment as the race enters the home stretch.
The voting comes as Republican establishment forces appear increasingly resigned to the likelihood of Trump as their nominee, while the ragtag coalition of donors and others that comprise the “stop Trump” movement is making what would seem to be its last stand.
A Cruz loss could make the billionaire all but unstoppable in his quest to win the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination, while a Trump defeat could rekindle the prospect of a contested Republican National Convention in July.
“The Cruz forces are the most well-organized in conventional political tactics, but in a year that defies convention at every step, the Trump phenomenon of mass rallies and digital media seem to have taken hold,” said John Hammond, a Republican National Committee member from Indiana who has not endorsed a presidential candidate. “The demographic in the Hoosier State leans toward Trump.”
Indiana polls show Trump with a double-digit lead over Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, while the Democratic race between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders is much closer.
Hammond said it’s too soon to say Trump’s nomination is inevitable. “But there is a growing chorus of national Republican realists and strategists who think he can’t be stopped,” he said. “They are filled with anxiety by what that outcome portends for the result in November against Clinton.”
Both Trump and Cruz spent most of the past week in the state, with Trump headlining two rallies there Monday. His message has focused heavily on manufacturing losses, including 1,400 jobs at a Carrier Corp. plant in Indianapolis.
“If we win Indiana, it’s over,” Trump said in Carmel, a suburb north of Indianapolis. “They have no path, whereas I have a very easy path.”
The real estate mogul also reveled in how he’s helped eliminate candidates from a primary field that once featured 17, including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. “Senators, governors, top people, smart people, 17, boom, boom, Walker gone, this one gone, Bush gone-low energy-Bush gone, all gone,” Trump said.
The front-runner is scheduled to appear with his supporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Tuesday evening, as he’s done after primary wins in the last two weeks.
Trump has been on a roll since landslide victories in New York on April 19 and in five other Northeast states a week ago. If Cruz can’t break that streak, it could make it nearly impossible to slow Trump’s momentum in the remaining nine Republican contests that conclude June 7 with California, New Jersey, and three other states.
Cruz’s underdog status comes even after he’s tried a series of headline-grabbing moves to try to shake up the race. He’s criticized Trump for receiving the endorsement of “convicted rapist” Mike Tyson, who served prison time after the champion boxer was found guilty of a sexual attack on a Miss Black America contestant in an Indianapolis hotel room in 1991.
