When early voting began in Indiana on April 5, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was fresh off a major victory in Wisconsin and polling within single digits of Donald Trump in the Hoosier State.
Much has changed since mid-April, but the thousands of absentee ballots that were cast in the weeks before Trump carried his home state of New York to victory and swept the Acela primary could help Cruz in Tuesday’s hotly contested Republican primary.
“It’s pretty fair to guess that early voting is probably going to favor Cruz since his core supporters here are Tea Party voters, and they could have had all their votes in on or around April 5,” Joy Pullman, an Indiana resident who serves as managing editor of The Federalist, told the Washington Examiner.
In Marion County, the largest county in the state and home to Indianapolis, data obtained by the Washington Examiner shows that the final number of early votes cast by registered Republicans totals 71 percent of the total number of early primary votes cast in the county in 2012.
A WTHR/HPI poll conducted in late April showed Cruz having the highest net favorability rating of the three remaining GOP candidates among voters in Marion County, followed by Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
In Allen County, an area Pullman described as “heavily conservative” and favorable towards Cruz, the total number of absentee ballot applications submitted this year was nearly 120 percent greater than the total number of early votes cast in the county in 2008.
Trump and Cruz held separate campaign events in Allen County, which is home to the heavily evangelical city of Fort Wayne, in the final 48 hours before Tuesday’s primary.
While Cruz may have benefitted from the momentum he enjoyed during the first few weeks of absentee voting in Indiana, Pullman noted that Kasich was still campaigning in the Hoosier State at that time.
“That was before Kasich pulled out of the state as part of their alliance, so that could prove to be a drawback in that some voters may have cast their ballots for Kasich before he wasn’t a contender,” she said.
The other “dicey” thing for Cruz, according to Pullman, is that the primary election in Indiana is open, meaning voters can choose to support a candidate form either party, and Pullman fully expects a handful of independents and Democrats to vote for Trump.
“I’ve met more voters who were deciding between [Bernie] Sanders and Trump, than Trump and Cruz,” she told the Examiner. “Cruz tends to not do as well in open primaries.”
Indiana has 57 delegates up for grabs, 27 of which are allocated on a winner-take-all basis by congressional district while the remaining 30 delegates are awarded to the candidate who receives the greatest percentage of the statewide vote.
Polls close at 6 p.m. ET in the Hoosier State. Both Trump and Cruz are expected to deliver remarks shortly after results pour in — Cruz from Indianapolis and Trump from Trump Tower in New York City.
