In a shocking turn of events, Donald Trump may very well be on his way to clinching the Republican nomination. In breaking new poll numbers released just hours before the Indiana primary polls open, Trump is 15 points ahead of rival US Senator Ted Cruz.
These numbers come in direct contradiction to numbers released earlier this week showing Cruz with a 16 point lead over Trump. Those rosy numbers for the Never Trump crowd have not been backed up by any other polls before or since, and, with this new poll, Cruz’s hopes have taken a huge tumble.
The win in Indiana has such high stakes because Trump continues to fail in maintaining 100% of the delegate count needed to clinch the nomination. If no candidate has this “magic number” before the nominating convention, then the convention becomes “open,” or contested. Under such circumstances, Cruz is a likely winner, although in truth the nomination is thrown open to just about anyone. Delegates who were previously pledged to support a specific candidate become unpledged and its up to the candidates to start wooing.
Cruz and serial third place finisher, Ohio Governor John Kasich, recently announced a de facto alliance towards the aim of keeping Trump from the majority. Key to their strategy is keeping Trump from a win in Indiana – and it doesn’t seem like it’s working. Kasich actually, in a “never before seen move,” effectively suspended his campaign in the Hoosier state in order to “make way for Cruz.”
Hilariously, in a secondary question in the poll, this strategy was shown again to be failing. You’d think the Indiana voters would lean towards Cruz as a second choice, considering his second place status in the polls.
Well, nope. Kasich is the second choice of almost 40% of Indiana Republican voters, although only about 9% of voters said they might vote differently than their stated first choice on election day.
With this new poll in mind, the analysts at Five Thirty Eight give Trump a 69% chance of winning the state when it votes on Tuesday. This is a huge jump for the struggling front runner, who just yesterday had a 35% chance of notching a win, compared to Cruz’s 65%. You can see the graph below.
Huffington Post, for its part, has maintained the likelihood of a Trump win the whole time. You can find their graph below.
The poll in question, released by NBC News/Wall Street Journal, surveyed 645 likely Republican primary voters over a two day period.
According to the pollster ratings provided by Five Thirty Eight, NBC/WSJ polls have a shocking level of accuracy. They are rated, as is far from common, with an “A-.” The pollster claiming a Cruz lead last week literally is so obscure it doesn’t even appear on the Five Thirty Eight list.
With the nomination in sight for Trump, he has continued to shift his focus towards attacking his perceived-as-likely general election opponent, Hillary Clinton. He has, for one, coined a nickname for Clinton, like he is so fond of doing for the other candidates – “Crooked Hillary.”
Featured Image via Gage Skidmore on Flickr, Available Under a Creative Commons License.
