Focus on late-voting Indiana
Once all but overlooked, Hoosier State finds itself the focus of candidates, nation
Candidates descend on Hoosier state ahead of Tuesday’s primary in election cycle when every delegate counts.
KNIGHTSTOWN, Ind. — Cheryl Hammer is a caterer, not a political party activist, but she lingered at a Ted Cruz campaign stop in this movie set-perfect small town to savor the moment in history.
“To actually have someone who’s running for president come by is huge,” said the 30-year resident, who’s leaning toward Cruz because she finds him more presidential than Donald Trump and, in this part of the country, manners still matter. “I’ll probably never see this again in my lifetime.”
Indiana is poised to play a starring role Tuesday in the presidential primary process, and Republican hopefuls have taken note, campaigning throughout the state in recent weeks ahead of voting.
That sort of attention from candidates is something most Hoosiers have never experienced because voting here falls so late in the election calendar.
The state once promised more hospitable terrain for Cruz, but polling increasingly gives Trump an edge. His unexpected romp in primaries last week pushed him far ahead of Cruz, andif the Texas senator has any hope of continuing to delegate-California, he must sweep Indiana’s winner57 delegates.
In what increasingly looks like a last stand for Cruz — and the GOP establishment — to block Trump’s momentum, voters are alternately tickled and flummoxed by all the attention being paid to them. Not in a generation have Hoosier state voters been asked to make such a decision. And many remain undecided.
“There’s plenty of votes up for grab — everywhere,” said David Buskill, executive director of the state Republican Party.
What Indiana lacks in demographic diversity, it makes up for as a Republican melting pot — an increasingly red state that stretches from the conservative Rust Belt of the north to the establishment strongholds of Indianapolis to the evangelical and rural working-class south.
It’s what Buskill calls a “crossroads” of America— a state that chose President Barack Obama in 2008 but shifted to Mitt Romney in 2012.
In a sign of how important Indiana has become to the nominating process, Cruz and rival John Kasich entered an unusual nonaggression pact in which the Ohio governor stood down here, so as not to split the vote against Trump, in return for Cruz doing the same in New Mexico and Oregon.
That has left Trump and Cruz in their first one-onone battle. Trump has swooped in to deliver rock star-like performances to stadium crowds hungry for his showmanship while Cruz has been grinding it out mile by mile in a bus tour that has him crisscrossing the state over the lastweek.
“I’m not playing games with Indiana,” Trump said at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, his image projected on a giant video screen and “Make America Great” spelled out in arena lights.
He implored Hoosiers to vote for him, promising they would look back on the moment years from now and think: “That was the greatest single vote in my lifetime that I ever cast.”
Frank and Shirlene Sundvall, who drove over from Shelbyville, where they operate rental properties, climbed into their van pleased.
“We’re hardcore Trumpers,” Frank Sundvall said.
“Hope is finally coming back to the silent majority,” he added. “Hope is coming back to America.”
Cruz has begun mocking Trump as a candidate who “likes to parachute in like Mick Jagger, show up at a football stadium, give some performance and then leave.”
“This country isn’t a reality show,” Cruz said at a breakfast stop at Sisters Pancake House near downtown Indianapolis.
In some ways, Indiana should have been Cruz country, offering a chance to duplicate his victories in Iowa and Wisconsin. Midwestern voters often bristle at Trump’s bravado, and Cruz is working to endear himself with a homespun approach. He announced Carly Fiorina as his running mate here to boost attention. But Cruz increasingly finds himself struggling. He got a somewhat belated endorsement from Gov. Mike Pence and has failed to stir the grass-roots conservatives who pushed him past Trump in those other states.
“The problem people here have with him more than anything is the ideological warrior,” said Pete Seat, a Kasich consultant in Indiana. “We’re a pretty pragmatic bunch in this state. We look to people who have their philosophical beliefs, but what’s important is getting the work done. In Ted Cruz, they don’t see that.”
Cruz is making a lastditch appeal to Hoosiers’ “good sense” to deny Trump a victory that would edge him closer to the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination.