Voters in Indiana made history Tuesday, although it might take a century or more for us to comprehend what they did.

The Hoosier primary cements the presidential nominations for Republican front-runner Donald Trump; and while Sen. Bernie Sanders narrowly defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Clinton continues to pile up delegates toward an inevitable Democratic nomination.

It sets up what could be the most celebrated political debate series since the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.

Clinton picked up 37 of Indiana’s 92 Democratic delegates, bringing her total to within 92 percent of the 2,382 delegates she needs to clinch the nomination.

Clinton, the former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady, will become the first woman nominated by a major political party as its candidate for commander in chief.

Trump picked up all of Indiana’s 57 GOP delegates — and he delivered the knockout punch as Sen. Ted Cruz suspended his flagging campaign. Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star, is campaigning as a political outsider with no prior experience in elected office.

But while the Indiana primary essentially galvanizes the party front-runners, the changing times, technology and other factors could spell the end of the parties themselves as the hubs of political might.

Consider the results of a CNN/ORC poll released Monday. The poll indicates 84 percent of voters nationwide think Trump will lead the Republican ticket and 85 percent say the Clinton will be the Democratic nominee.

But the poll shows something else: Both candidates struggle to carry their own party. Just 51 percent of the Democratic voters back Clinton while only 49 percent of the Republican voters back Trump.

The results of the poll hint strongly that the presidential candidates have crafted their message for the general electorate rather than for the party they want to lead.

Trump in particular has voiced little love or need for the GOP during his primary run. He has cried “unfair” in caucus states like Colorado, where the rules required a stronger party organization. Looking ahead to the general election, Trump appears to be challenging the party leadership to hop aboard his campaign — implying that the party needs Trump more than Trump needs the party.

Compare the current condition with the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. The series of seven debates catapulted a backwoods lawyer his relatively unknown Republican Party into national prominence. It happened because Abraham Lincoln took on Stephen Douglas and an entrenched Democratic James Buchanan administration over the issues of states’ rights and slavery.

Lincoln and the Republican Party came about and flourished because the Democrats in power refused to respond to the will of the electorate over slavery and other vital issues of the day.

The outcome of Tuesday’s Indiana primary could signal the end of the Republican Party — or perhaps the beginning of its dramatic transformation.

How different are today’s presidential debates from the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858? How will history look back at Trump-Clinton a century from now?

Unfortunately, if the primary debates are any indication, they won’t even come close.