Do-or-Die for Cruz in Indiana

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Josh Kraushaar:

The tra­ject­ory of the GOP nom­in­a­tion fight has gone something like this: Don­ald Trump dom­in­ates a round of primar­ies and ap­pears close to clinch­ing the nom­in­a­tion, only to suf­fer an em­bar­rass­ing set­back days later. His ad­visers plan to un­veil a more-pres­id­en­tial Don­ald Trump even as the can­did­ate is ramp­ing up his trade­mark in­sults. Just as the es­tab­lish­ment starts com­ing to grips with Trump, he gives them yet an­oth­er reas­on to pan­ic.

Ex­pect déjà vu all over again. Trump’s vic­tor­ies in his home re­gion com­bined with pre­dic­tions of in­ev­it­ab­il­ity are about to be tested again as the primary heads west, to­ward less fa­vor­able turf for the busi­ness­man. And the non­ag­gres­sion pact that Ted Cruz struck with John Kasich is likely to con­sol­id­ate anti-Trump sen­ti­ment in In­di­ana, which would once again put Cruz in the cat­bird seat. If Cruz wins In­di­ana, tak­ing most of its del­eg­ates, the path for Trump to win 1,237 del­eg­ates is very nar­row.

Don’t be­lieve the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that the Cruz-Kasich deal is a stra­tegic mis­fire, one that comes too late in the pro­cess to make a dif­fer­ence. It’s a crit­ic­al de­vel­op­ment in a state where there’s an anti-Trump ma­jor­ity that’s di­vided between Cruz and home-state neigh­bor Kasich. The same con­sol­id­at­ing tac­tics al­lowed Cruz to trans­form a close Wis­con­sin race in­to a blo­wout in his fa­vor. Even without a gubernat­ori­al en­dorse­ment (In­di­ana Gov. Mike Pence is un­likely to jump on the #StopTrump train) and a uni­fied talk-ra­dio front against Trump, all it takes for Cruz to be­ne­fit is a nar­row vic­tory. And if past is pro­logue, Trump’s band of sup­port in Mid­west­ern states is con­sist­ently nar­row: He took 39 per­cent of the vote in Illinois, 36 per­cent in Michigan, 36 per­cent in Ohio, and 35 per­cent in Wis­con­sin. He’s now polling at 39 per­cent in In­di­ana, ac­cord­ing to the Real­Clear­Polit­ics av­er­age, be­fore the cav­alry comes in for Cruz.

Anti-Trump groups such as the Club for Growth and Our Prin­ciples PAC are now pour­ing mil­lions in­to In­di­ana to broad­cast a sin­gu­lar stop-Trump, pro-Cruz mes­sage. Un­like New York and the North­east­ern primary states, it’s in­ex­pens­ive to air ads in most of In­di­ana’s me­dia mar­kets. Out­side groups have mostly held their fire since Wis­con­sin. They’re com­ing back with a ven­geance in In­di­ana, with anti-Trump groups out­spend­ing pro-Trump groups by a 4-to-1 ra­tio. If the battle for the nom­in­a­tion was defined by mo­mentum, it’s fair to as­sume Trump could con­sol­id­ate sup­port with his North­east­ern sweep. But this race has been about everything else. (Trump won big on Su­per Tues­day, only to be dealt caucus set­backs days later; he dom­in­ated in 15 pivotal big-state primar­ies on March 15 only to flail in Wis­con­sin.) The re­gion­al dif­fer­ences in Trump’s sup­port have been sig­ni­fic­ant, and it’s more likely that tac­tics will define the In­di­ana primary more than Trump’s re­cent string of home-field vic­tor­ies.

And yes, calls for stra­tegic vot­ing have worked in the primary pro­cess in cru­cial in­stances. In the run-up to the Ohio primary, Marco Ru­bio called on his sup­port­ers in the state to back Kasich. Ru­bio only won a tiny 2.3 per­cent of the GOP vote, a clear sign that most of his sup­port­ers heeded his calls. After Wis­con­sin Gov. Scott Walk­er told anti-Trump Re­pub­lic­ans to back Cruz, not Kasich, the Ohio gov­ernor’s sup­port col­lapsed throughout the state.

This race is a scav­enger hunt for del­eg­ates, and Trump will need to get close to 1,237 of them to win on a first bal­lot at the con­ven­tion. Oth­er­wise, Trump is guar­an­teed to shed del­eg­ates as the pro­cess goes on. If he doesn’t win In­di­ana, Trump would need a land­slide win in Cali­for­nia to come with­in strik­ing dis­tance of his ma­gic num­ber—or achieve an un­likely up­set else­where out West.

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From above:

Trump’s vic­tor­ies in his home re­gion com­bined with pre­dic­tions of in­ev­it­ab­il­ity are about to be tested again as the primary heads west, to­ward less fa­vor­able turf for the busi­ness­man. And the non­ag­gres­sion pact that Ted Cruz struck with John Kasich is likely to con­sol­id­ate anti-Trump sen­ti­ment in In­di­ana………..
It’s a crit­ic­al de­vel­op­ment in a state where there’s an anti-Trump ma­jor­ity that’s di­vided between Cruz and home-state neigh­bor Kasich.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/in/indiana_republican_presidential_primary-5786.html

However, people are being polled about ”if no Kasich, who gets your vote?”
And 2 out of 3 say Cruz BUT 1 out of 3 says Trump.
Now look at the latest Indiana figures:
Trump 40
Cruz 35
Kasich 20
IF no one voted for Kasich, it is true, Cruz would beat Trump.

However, Kasich has been telling supporters today to go ahead and vote for him EVEN though he is not visiting the state OR spending money on ads there.

If only 5% or more of Kasich’s supporters vote Kasich, Trump wins.