2016 Indiana Republican presidential primary

2016 Indiana Republican presidential primary
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57 pledged delegates to the Republican National Convention
Donald Trump 40–50% 50–60% 60–70%	Ted Cruz 40–50% 50–60%

The 2016 Indiana Republican presidential primary was held on May 3 in the U.S. state of Indiana as one of the Republican Party's primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election. This was a winner-take-all election, so Donald Trump, who came in first in the popular vote, won all the delegates.

The Democratic Party held their own Indiana primary on the same day, which was won by Bernie Sanders. Other primaries were not scheduled for that day.

Following Trump's win, both Cruz and Kasich suspended their campaigns and Trump was declared the presumptive GOP nominee.

Primary

Pre-primary strategies

By late April, Cruz and Kasich had both been eliminated from getting 1,237 delegates, but they still had a chance to accumulate enough delegates to force a contested convention in Cleveland. Realizing this, Cruz and Kasich attempted to focus their efforts in different states, with Cruz challenging Trump head-to-head in Indiana and Kasich challenging Trump head-to-head in Oregon and New Mexico. However, the alliance was tenuous at best, with Kasich telling voters in Indiana the next day to still vote for him and Cruz downplaying the alliance later in the week; it also met with disapproval from 58% of Indiana voters.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Final attempts to stop Trump

Indiana was seen as the final state for the "Stop Trump" movement. Indiana, whose delegates were awarded winner-take all statewide and by congressional district, was seen as essential to denying Trump the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination.^[4] Following the Acela primaries, Cruz attempted to bolster his chances by announcing that, if nominated, he would name Fiorina as his running mate.^[5] Fiorina had served as a Cruz campaign surrogate since March after suspending her own presidential campaign in February and Cruz hoped that Fiorina could help his campaign in Indiana and her home state of California.^[6] On April 29, 2016, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, who eventually became Donald Trump's running mate, announced that he would vote for Cruz in the primary election.^[7] However, Cruz's posturing and endorsements proved to be insufficient, as Trump handily won Indiana with 53% of the vote, despite being outspent by a margin of more than 4–1.^[8] Cruz lost Indiana by a wide margin to Trump (53% to 37% with Kasich at 8%) and subsequently dropped out of the race.

Trump emerges as Republican nominee

Cruz lost Indiana by a wide margin to Trump (53% to 37% with Kasich at 8%) and subsequently dropped out of the race. As a result, Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman, tweeted that Trump was the presumptive nominee in the GOP. The next day, Kasich also suspended his campaign, leaving Trump as the only candidate in the race. Despite his endorsement of Cruz, Mike Pence went on to become Trump's running mate.

Opinion polling

List of polls

Winner: Donald Trump
Primary date: May 3, 2016

Poll source	Date	1st	2nd	3rd	Other
Primary results^[9]^{[self-published source]}	May 3, 2016	Donald Trump 53.25%	Ted Cruz 36.64%	John Kasich 7.57%	Ben Carson 0.80%, Jeb Bush 0.59%, Marco Rubio 0.47%, Rand Paul 0.39%, Chris Christie 0.16%, Carly Fiorina 0.13%
Gravis Marketing^[10] Margin of error: ± 5.0% Sample size: 379	April 28–29, 2016	Donald Trump 44%	Ted Cruz 27%	John Kasich 9%	Undecided 19%
ARG^[11] Margin of error: ± 4.0% Sample size: 400	April 27–28, 2016	Donald Trump 41%	Ted Cruz 32%	John Kasich 21%	Undecided 6%
NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist^[12] Margin of error: ± 3.9% Sample size: 645	April 26–28, 2016	Donald Trump 49%	Ted Cruz 34%	John Kasich 13%	Undecided 4%
IPFW^[13] Margin of error: ± 4.9% Sample size: 400	April 13–27, 2016	Ted Cruz 45%	Donald Trump 29%	John Kasich 13%	Undecided 13%
Clout Research^[14] Margin of error: ±4.75% Sample size: 423	April 27, 2016	Donald Trump 37.1%	Ted Cruz 35.2%	John Kasich 16.3%	Undecided 11.4%
CBS News/YouGov^[15] Margin of error: ± 6.6% Sample size: 548	April 20–22, 2016	Donald Trump 40%	Ted Cruz 35%	John Kasich 20%	Undecided 5%
Fox News^[16] Margin of error: ± 4% Sample size: 602	April 18–21, 2016	Donald Trump 41%	Ted Cruz 33%	John Kasich 16%	Undecided 7%, None 2%
POS/Howey Politics Indiana/WTHR Channel^[17] Margin of error: ± 4.3% Sample size: 507	April 18–21, 2016	Donald Trump 37%	Ted Cruz 31%	John Kasich 22%	Undecided 7%, Other 2%
Bellwether^[18] Margin of error: ± 3.5% Sample size: 670	December 2–9, 2015	Donald Trump 26%	Ted Cruz 17%	Marco Rubio 17%	Ben Carson 16%, Jeb Bush 6%, Rand Paul 5%, Chris Christie 3%, Carly Fiorina 3%, Rick Santorum 1%, Mike Huckabee 1%, John Kasich 1%

Results

Trump won Indiana by a considerable margin statewide. He won nearly all regions of the state except for several counties in northeast Indiana containing the Fort Wayne and Elkhart areas, which Cruz won.

Indiana Republican primary, May 3, 2016
Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Actual delegate count
Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Bound	Unbound	Total
Donald Trump	591,514	53.26%	57	0	57
Ted Cruz	406,783	36.63%	0	0	0
John Kasich	84,111	7.57%	0	0	0
Ben Carson (withdrawn)	8,914	0.80%	0	0	0
Jeb Bush (withdrawn)	6,508	0.59%	0	0	0
Marco Rubio (withdrawn)	5,175	0.47%	0	0	0
Rand Paul (withdrawn)	4,306	0.39%	0	0	0
Chris Christie (withdrawn)	1,738	0.16%	0	0	0
Carly Fiorina (withdrawn)	1,494	0.13%	0	0	0
Unprojected delegates:			0	0	0
Total:	1,110,543	100.00%	57	0	57
Source: The Green Papers