Indiana is looking like Ted Cruz's last stand. Even some of the Texas senator's die-hard supporters in the Hoosier State acknowledge that this is a make-or-break bid for him to stop Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination.
Should the conservative firebrand lose this midwestern state today – the latest state primary in the US presidential election – it will likely mean that the New York billionaire is all but unstoppable in his journey to the 1,237 party delegates he needs to be named the Republican candidate to stand in November’s election.
"If he doesn't win Indiana, I'm afraid the campaign is over for him," said Scotty Robertson (28), a Baptist pastor wearing a T-shirt and badge with Cruz and his recently named running mate Carly Fiorina printed on them.
Robertson sits with his wife, Jamie, and one-year-old daughter Carly in the Bravo Cafe in Osceola in the northern part of the state as diners tuck into eggs, cinnamon toast and waffles as they await the Republican on the canvass.
Outside the packed restaurant is a long queue of supporters extending all the way down the large car park, hoping to shake Cruz’s hand or snap a selfie.
Trump has taken 26 states out of 40 (to 11 for Cruz), winning 996 delegates or 80 per cent of what he needs to secure the party nomination and avoid a contested convention when the party meets in Cleveland in July.
Indiana’s 57 Republican delegates will not put him over the line but a Cruz loss here would likely deal a fatal blow to any efforts at blocking Trump.
Still, Cruz told reporters outside the cafe: “I am in for the distance as long as we have a viable path to victory,” resting all his hopes on a convention fight.
At a later campaign stop in Indiana on Monday, in the town of Marion, Cruz confronted pro-Trump protesters chanting: “Do the math!”
“With all respect, Donald Trump is deceiving you, playing you for a chump,” the first-term senator told one of the Trump supporters.
If Cruz (45) loses this state, he will not have won a Republican state primary in almost a month when he beat Trump (69) in Wisconsin on April 5th. Since then Trump has scored landslide wins in New York on April 19th and five other northeastern states including Pennsylvania last week.
Indiana’s evangelical and Christian conservatives who hold sway in the state’s Republican ballots had been expected to make this contest more favourable territory for Cruz. But an NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll/Marist poll at the weekend gave Trump a 15-point lead over Cruz.
Endorsement
The Texan has thrown everything at Indiana. He named Fiorina as his running mate, a highly unusual move for a trailing candidate. The Texan and supporting super PACs, or political action committees, have spent $2 million on adverts in the state and he has won an endorsement from governor Mike Pence, though the state Republican also praised Trump in this Rust Belt industrial state for giving "voice to the frustration of millions of working Americans".
The Bravo Cafe was one of 11 stops by Cruz or his surrogates across Indiana on Monday, reflecting his last-gasp efforts to win the state.
"It is pretty clear in terms of his barnstorming, his advertising, his announcement of a running mate, this is an all-or-nothing proposition for him. Should he lose Indiana he really has no chance at all," said Darren Dochuk, an associate professor of history at Notre Dame University in nearby South Bend.
After meeting and greeting customers for an hour, Cruz put Indiana’s primary in stark terms for his campaign when answering questions from reporters.
“The entire country is looking to Indiana and really depending on Indiana to pull us back from this cliff that we are staring over,” he said.
“Indiana is facing a choice and it is a very simple choice between supporting a campaign that is based on yelling and screaming and cursing and insults versus unifying behind a campaign that is a positive, optimistic, forward-looking conservative campaign.”
Cruz is banking on Christian conservatives, even framing the primary as a battle between good and evil. He declined to say who was talking about when he said on Sunday that he believed Americans would “not give in to evil”.
“We are not a country built on hatred, we are not a country built on anger, on pettiness. We are not a country built on bullying,” he said, in a thinly veiled reference to the billionaire who likes jabbing him with the nickname “Lyin’ Ted”.
For two Cruz supporters, retired teachers Mary Kleinfehn (62) and Linda Kelly (59), who drove an hour to meet him, president Trump is a scary prospect.
“My concern is how easy he can change his view on something and then he says, ‘Oh, it’s just a business decision,’ ” said Kelly, concerned about Trump’s past support for Democrats and past liberal positions on abortion.
“If you are against something, I want you to be against it; don’t change it with the wind.”
“I don’t like the way he calls people names and makes fun of people. He is not presidential. I could see him call somebody the wrong name and start World War Three,” said Kleinfehn, laughing nervously.