Though nothing is conclusive, polls, pundits, and corporate media all appeared to be in agreement on Tuesday that Donald Trump would likely be appointed the Republican nominee for president.
The New York billionaire hit a new national high on Tuesday, claiming 56 percent of support among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters in the latest NBC News/Survey Monkey poll.
If Trump fares well in Indiana, which is holdings its primary on Tuesday, he will land within striking distance of the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination.
The Hill explains:
Trump needs only 241 delegates to clinch the nomination and avoid a contested convention, according to The Associated Press delegate tracker.
Indiana holds a winner-take-most contest. The statewide winner will receive 30 delegates, and 27 more will be awarded through winner-take-all contests in each congressional district.
If he wins all 57 delegates, the real estate mogul would need as little as 41 percent of the remaining delegates.
Those behind the deep-pocketed Stop Trump effort have even conceded that if the real estate mogul takes Indiana they will likely pull their funding for Ted Cruz, his primary competitor.
"If he can’t be stopped in Indiana, you will have a lot of people who just throw up their arms and say, 'Well, I guess he can’t be stopped,'" influential anti-Trump organizer Erick Erickson told Politico. "I think the super donors or the megadonors — they stop spending money. They’re not going to get on board [with] Trump, but they’re not going to continue to invest in what they perceive as a lost cause."
However, Indiana is not a done deal. As Politico reporter Steven Shepard noted on Tuesday, the state has seen "a relative dearth of public polling," and those which have been conducted have been confusing at best.
"Of the seven public polls conducted over the past three weeks, Trump leads six of them," Shepard reports. "Cruz’s only advantage came from an Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne survey that showed Cruz with a massive 16-point lead."
Despite this ambiguity, even before polling places opened their doors, the media seemingly anointed Trump the big winner and began lining up behind the much-maligned frontrunner.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Tuesday threw its support beyond Trump arguing that the GOP should unify around his candidacy because a third-party bid would be devastating for Congressional Republicans.
And Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who for months had a very public row with Trump over misogynistic comments made about her and other women, on Tuesday said that she thought women voters would come around if he "behaves himself and acts presidentially."
Trump is also polling ahead of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton by three points, according to the most recent Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, though he continues to trail Bernie Sanders by double digits, which has been consistent throughout the campaign.
Looking forward, Trump leads Cruz by 34 percentage points in California, polling 54 to 20 percent among likely Republican voters, according to the latest SurveyUSA poll. California, which holds a 172 delegate jackpot for Republican contenders, holds its primary on June 7.
