Subject: The 5-Minute Fix: Stop Trump faces a do-or-die moment in Indiana
From: The Washington Post <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 09:02:59 -0400

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THE 5-MINUTE FIX
 
Keeping up with politics is easy now

By Amber Phillips

We've been writing that Indiana's GOP presidential primary Tuesday is pretty close to a make-or-break moment for the Stop Trump forces and, by extension, Ted Cruz, who is basically the group's presidential nominee at this point. But why is that exactly?
Here are 3 key reasons:
1. Ted Cruz needs a win: This one's simple. To claim you're a viable candidate, you need to actually win, right? Well Cruz has lost races in six straight states, some by double-digits. He hasn't won a race in four weeks. Cruz needs to show he can win a critical state state in a crucial moment. Without a solid win right now, Cruz risks looking like a weaker and weaker challenger to Trump in the states that have yet to vote.
Cruz is campaigning hard in Indiana right now. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
2. Indiana is the second-biggest delegate prize left: Even if Cruz wins Indiana, math says he can't catch up to Trump's delegate lead. But Cruz can put up roadblocks to try to stop Trump from cruising to the magic 1,237 delegates to secure the nomination before the GOP convention. (Right now, Trump is bordering on 1,000.) Consider Indiana the Stop Trump forces' second-biggest roadblock they're tossing out in Trump's path. That's because the state's 57 delegates are the second-biggest prize left in the race and you can win most or all of them in one fell swoop. If Cruz can't stop Trump here, he could be almost out of chances to do so.
3. They need something — anything — to prove the naysayers wrong. Last week, we noted that some establishment Republicans are reluctantly coming to terms with a reality that Trump is their likely nominee. That's not a universal mindset among Republicans, but it's a dangerous line of thinking to have out there for the Cruz/Stop Trump forces. A Cruz win in Indiana would basically let Cruz cry: "Wait! Don't give up on us!" A Cruz loss in Indiana would let the resigned-to-Trump camp sigh: "I told you so. Let's just move on to the general." That would be bad news for Cruz. And that is why Indiana's primary Tuesday is a pretty big deal to him and the Stop Trump forces he leads.
Guess which 2016 GOP candidate Republican voters like the least
Is it: A) Donald Trump B) John Kasich or C) Ted Cruz?
C, A and B, respectively. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
We're not trying to pick on Cruz today, we swear. But the answer is C, according to Gallup, which tracks these things daily. Cruz's net favorability — the number of people who view him positively minus the number who view him negatively — was on-par with his rivals, Trump and Kasich, for much of this month. But it took a dive around April 20.
(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)
The Fix's Philip Bump has an educated guess as to why, and it's more bad news for Cruz: "This correlates roughly to the time around the New York primary — when it became apparent that Trump was poised to make big strides toward clinching the nomination. … The numbers suggest that affection for Cruz may have been more tightly tied to his role as Not Trump than his personal qualities."
Democrats could have a 'contested' convention, but it wouldn't be *that* contested
Frenemies. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Democrats are voting in Indiana on Tuesday, too. Polls suggest it could be close, but the race is much less suspenseful because the math on the Democratic side is clearer than on the GOP side: Hillary Clinton is almost certainly the nominee, barring any miracles or scandals.
That said, Bernie Sanders could drag this thing out all the way to the convention, Bump writes. Here's how, in three numbers:
65: The percentage of pledged delegates still up for grabs that Sanders calculates he needs to win to have a shot at beating Clinton. Sanders himself has said it's going to be an uphill battle, even though some of the 14 states coming up could be favorable to him. Other states — say New Jersey and Washington, D.C. — might not be so favorable to him. And Sanders has yet to prove he can win big in states that aren't his strength.
520: The number of superdelegates (Democratic members of Congress and party officials) who have signaled their support for Clinton. Sanders so far has 39. On Sunday, Sanders took a pretty unusual step and asked those hundreds of superdelegates to switch their allegiances to him — particularly in states where he won the popular vote. We're dubious all those delegates will heed his call, but making the request at all suggests that Sanders is serious about trying to stay in this race as long as he can.
3 million: The number of votes Clinton has received more than Sanders, a direct and pretty strong counter-argument to his pitch to superdelegates that voters have chosen him and they should, too.
Bottom line: It's going to be very tough for Sanders to win the nomination outright in the nominating contests that are left. But just by virtue of staying in the race, he could make this thing a contested convention.

That's it for Monday. Programming note: Your Fix author will be out for the rest of the week (hello beach vacay!), but we'll still send out a shortened newsletter Wednesday and Friday with all the awesome Fix content you've come to expect.

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