After big wins in Pa, an 'energized' Trump electorate looks ever stronger to GOP
As the chattering analysts of cable were digesting the Acela primary blowout last week, Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz were already working Indiana turf.
As the chattering analysts of cable were digesting the Acela primary blowout last week, Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz were already working Indiana turf.
That state's Tuesday primary now looms as the we-are-not-kidding-this-time last chance for the GOP establishment to stop the reality TV star and force a contested convention in Cleveland.
But that goal receded a bit further after Trump's wins last week in Pennsylvania and four other Northeastern states set up what looks more and more like a battle with Democrat Hillary Clinton for the White House.
And a battle that gives some Republicans hope: As one Pennsylvania GOP leader put it, Trump's electorate is "fired up."
A Trump victory in Indiana would cement a growing perception among top Republicans that he is the inevitable nominee, and would take some of the pressure off the mogul to dominate June's California primary in order to reach 1,237 delegates needed before the convention.
If Cruz wins Indiana and takes most or all of its 57 delegates, Trump would be about 200 delegates short heading into the final voting, keeping alive the possibility of that modern rarity: a decision-making party convention.
The latest Indiana polling data has the two men in a close race there, with Trump narrowly leading Cruz in the latest Real Clear Politics aggregation of polls.
Trump is supported by an average of 37.5 percent of likely Republican voters, to 35.2 percent backing Cruz, and 18 percent for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Cruz has camped out in Indiana since before the Acela primary, and last week he stole news coverage away from Trump's landslide by naming former rival Carly Fiorina, the retired tech executive, as his running mate. But it remains unclear if that unorthodox step, untried since Ronald Reagan did it in his unsuccessful 1976 primary campaign, will move Hoosier voters.
On Friday, the state's conservative Republican governor, Mike Pence, said he would vote for Cruz, though he praised Trump.
As a favorite of tea-party types and evangelical conservatives, Cruz ordinarily might not be a natural fit for Indiana's politics, with blue-collar Democrats in the north, Republicans dominating the center of the state, and conservative "blue-dog" Democrats in the southern hills.
"Indiana has historically elected moderates as governors and senators, whether they're Democrats or Republicans," said six-term GOP Mayor Jim Brainard of Carmel, Ind., a prosperous suburb of Indianapolis.
"Elected officials in Indiana tend to fall in a pretty narrow band in the middle of the spectrum," said Brainard, Kasich's state co-chairman. The state party is dominated by "business-oriented Republicans, not wedge-issue Republicans," he said.
Yet Cruz has become the vessel of the stop-Trump movement. Kasich stopped campaigning in the state after the rapprochement he reached with Cruz that gives the Texas senator a clean shot at Indiana, while allowing Kasich to go one-on-one with Trump in New Mexico and Oregon.
Like many Kasich supporters, Brainard was initially disappointed with the deal - "but then I started to think about it," he said. "We need to get the right candidate nominated who can win in the fall and govern if elected, and this is the way to get an open convention where human reason can prevail."
Both Cruz and Trump seized on powerful Indiana symbols last week. Cruz went to the bandbox gym where the inspiring basketball movie Hoosiers was filmed, and Trump rolled out Bobby Knight, the mercurial and legendary coach of the Indiana University basketball team. Knight compared Trump to Harry Truman.
The GOP establishment, meanwhile, sent conflicting signals. Former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner called Cruz "Lucifer in the flesh" last week, and an increasing number of national Republicans and party leaders on Capitol Hill said it was time to accept the inevitable - Trump - and unite to try to beat Clinton.
Clues in the Pa. vote
The primary results from Pennsylvania gave some Republicans hope for that fall fight. In winning the state overwhelmingly, rolling up nearly 57 percent of the vote (Cruz got under 22 percent, Kasich a bit over 19), Trump showed he could broaden his base of support. He won in every demographic category, according to exit polls, including the well-educated and more affluent. He won in suburbs, which had been cool to him in other states. And he carried all 67 counties in the state.
Perhaps most important, under the direction its new convention adviser, Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign built an organization that negotiated Pennsylvania's convoluted election rules to promote its preferred delegates at the polls.
Patti Meringo, a 62-year-old homemaker, sat outside Bryn Athyn Borough Hall in Montgomery County for hours last Tuesday, passing out cards listing the pro-Trump delegate slate to a couple of hundred voters.
Trump's strength as a businessman will "bring trade back to our country" and his stance on border control will guard against terrorists slipping into the country among refugees from Syria or Iraq, Meringo said.
"I'm really afraid for that for our country," she said.
Main Line Republicans are known for preferring moderation to bombast, but some voters there saw both this time - in Trump.
John Horstmann, 65, a retired lawyer from Bryn Mawr, said he at first followed Trump's campaign "only for entertainment value," but in the end decided to vote for him. He thinks the proposed wall on the border with Mexico and other controversial ideas are just for show.
"He's basically a moderate," Horstmann said.
Rob Gleason, chairman of Pennsylvania's Republican Party, said that even Trump opponents are beginning to accept that he may be the nominee.
"You can feel the change coming," Gleason said.
If Trump prevails in Cleveland, Gleason believes the party would have a chance to carry Pennsylvania for the first time since 1988. He cites Trump's primary landslide, and the thousands of party-switchers who, it would appear, became Republicans this spring in order to vote for the mogul.
"You can't win Pennsylvania without an energized base, and people are fired up," Gleason said.
Trump and Clinton both have low favorability ratings - "high negatives," in campaign-speak - but even there, Gleason sees a silver lining.
"Hillary's negatives have built up over 30 years - she's not going to be able to shed them so easily, but Trump's negatives have only grown over the last four or five months," he said. "Democrats will rue the day they said they wanted Donald Trump."
215-854-2718@tomfitzgerald
Staff writer Michaelle Bond contributed to this article.