Cruz desperately seeks to stop Trump
INDIANAPOLIS — Republican Ted Cruz faces a high-stakes test for his slumping presidential campaign in today’s Indiana primary, one of the last opportunities for the Texas senator to halt Donald Trump’s stunning march toward the GOP nomination.
Cruz has spent the past week camped out in Indiana, securing the support of the state’s governor and announcing retired technology executive Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Yet his aides were pessimistic heading into today’s voting and were prepared for Cruz to fall short, though the senator vowed to stay in the race, regardless of the results.
“I am in for the distance, as long as we have a viable path to victory,” Cruz told reporters Monday.
Trump devoted more time to campaigning in Indiana than he has to most other states, underscoring his eagerness to put his Republican rival away and shift his attention toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. While Trump cannot clinch the nomination with a big win in Indiana, his path would get easier and he would have more room for error in the final contests.
“Indiana is very important, because if I win that’s the end of it. It would be over,” Trump said during a lunch stop in Indianapolis.
Republican leaders spent months dismissing Trump as little more than an entertainer who would fade once voting started. But Republican primary voters have stuck with the billionaire businessman, handing him victories in every region of the country, including a string of six straight wins on the East Coast.
Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also face off in Indiana’s Democratic primary today, though the stakes were lower than in the Republican race. Clinton holds a commanding lead — she’s secured 91 percent of the delegates she needs to win the nomination. That means she can still win the nomination even if she loses every remaining contest.
Sanders has conceded he faces a difficult path to overtake Clinton, one that hinges on convincing superdelegates to back him over the former secretary of state. Superdelegates are Democratic Party insiders who can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of how their states vote. And they favor Clinton by a nearly 18-1 margin.
Neither Clinton nor Sanders planned to spend today in Indiana. Sanders was making stops in Kentucky, which holds a primary in mid-May, while Clinton moved on to Ohio, a key general election battleground.
Clinton’s team has started deploying staff to states that will be crucial in November and is also raising money for the fall campaign. Even as Trump hires more staff to round out his slim team, he already lags far behind Clinton in general election preparations.
