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Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders Win Indiana Primaries

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Donald Trump dealt Ted Cruz's campaign a fatal loss with his victory in the Indiana GOP primary. Later on Tuesday night, The Texas senator suspended his bid for the White House.

In the Democratic race, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton, but his victory still won't be enough to close the yawning gap between the two.

Indiana proved decisive in the GOP contest. With his Indiana victory, Trump crossed the 1,000-delegate threshold. He's 84 percent of the way to getting the 1,237 delegates he needs, and he needs just 37 percent of the remaining delegates to get there. It was already mathematically impossible for either Cruz or Ohio Sen. John Kasich to get a majority of delegates on the first convention ballot.

After Cruz suspended his campaign, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tweeted that Trump would be the GOP's presumptive nominee and that the party should unite behind him.

Indiana had emerged as a must-win for Cruz and the #NeverTrump forces who were set on stopping the controversial GOP front-runner from getting the Republican nomination. Anti-Trump groups spent $2.8 million on TV in Indiana, while Cruz's campaign and his allies combined to spend $3.3 million on air. Trump's campaign spent under $1 million.

Their work to stop Trump was for naught, though. If he sweeps all 57 Indiana delegates tonight, Trump's path to the GOP nomination will be very clear.

"Obviously Trump's victory in Indiana makes the road ahead more challenging," #NeverTrump senior adviser Rory Cooper said in a statement. "We will continue to seek opportunities to oppose his nomination and to draw a clear line between him and the values of the conservative cause. If nominated, he will lose in historic fashion; threaten down-ballot campaigns and likely usher in a Clinton presidency."

Even after Kasich signaled last week he wouldn't compete in Indiana as part of a quasi-alliance with Cruz's campaign, the Texas senator couldn't catch Trump in polls. Kasich instead focused on the Oregon and Washington primaries later this month, and Tuesday night after polls closed he said he would remain in the race.

"Tonight's results are not going to alter Gov. Kasich's campaign plans. Our strategy has been and continues to be one that involves winning the nomination at an open convention," Kasich's chief strategist, John Weaver, wrote in a memo to reporters.

Cruz tried to salvage his White House hopes by naming onetime rival Carly Fiorina as his running mate last week, but the unusual move didn't boost his numbers in the state. He even had the backing of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, but the Republican's lukewarm endorsement didn't give him the jolt he needed, either.

Trump trotted out key Hoosier State endorsements of his own, including legendary (and controversial) former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight.

The GOP race devolved into even more vitriol Tuesday on the campaign trail, underscoring just why many Republicans worry about the volatility of Trump as their general-election nominee.

Trump began doubling down on a tabloid story that alleged Cruz's father had ties to President John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. In response, Cruz blasted Trump as a "pathological liar, "utterly amoral" and a "narcissist."

Katie Packer, chair of the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC, said in a statement that comments like those are why the group will continue to press on despite the daunting math against Cruz.

"A substantial number of delegates remain up for grabs in this highly unpredictable year," Packer said. "In addition, there is more than a month before the California primary — more time for Trump to continue to disqualify himself in the eyes of voters, as he did yet again today spreading absurd tabloid lies about Ted Cruz's father and the JFK assassination."

On the Democratic side, Sanders won in Indiana, but even if he picks up most of the state's delegates likely won't be enough to stop Clinton. The 83 delegates up for grabs will be distributed proportionally, and heading into Tuesday Sanders trailed the former secretary of state by 327 pledged delegates.

According to NPR's calculations, even with a Sanders victory, it won't blunt Clinton's delegate lead enough. Going into Tuesday, Sanders needs 65 percent of all remaining pledged delegates for a pledged majority. Including superdelegates, Clinton is 91 percent of the way to the 2,383 she needs. And as NPR's Arnie Seipel has calculated, even if all superdelegates voted the way their states did, Clinton would still have a 200-plus superdelegate lead over Sanders, with a 500 total delegate lead.

Jessica Taylor is a political reporter with NPR based in Washington, DC, covering elections and breaking news out of the White House and Congress. Her reporting can be heard and seen on a variety of NPR platforms, from on air to online. For more than a decade, she has reported on and analyzed House and Senate elections and is a contributing author to the 2020 edition of The Almanac of American Politics and is a senior contributor to The Cook Political Report.
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