Donald Trump Wins Decisively in Indiana; Ted Cruz Suspends Campaign

It was a busy night in the race for the White House in November.

Indiana, which was the last hope for GOP members who didn't want Donald Trump to win the Republican Presidential nomination, was won decisively by Trump. The final numbers aren't in as of yet, but with 98% of the votes counted, CNN has Trump winning the state by a margin of nearly 17 points.

Indiana was Ted Cruz's last stand. Cruz, who had been involved in a nasty back-and-forth with the Trump campaign over the past month or so, acknowledged that he no longer had a path to victory and suspended his campaign after Indiana's results came in. This leaves just one person - John Kasich - in the race against Trump.

Heading into Indiana, the Cruz and Kasich campaigns united in order to try and prevent Trump from receiving the majority of Republican delegates. Cruz would focus his time and money on Indiana, while Kasich would focus on Oregon and New Mexico. In the end, the strategy didn't work, with many observers calling it desperate.

For the past couple of months, many in the GOP had been confident that a contested Republican convention would result in the nomination slipping through the hands of Donald Trump. If Trump failed to win 1,237 delegates, a contested convention would emerge, opening the door for somebody like Cruz, Kasich or even Mitt Romney to snatch the nomination. Donald Trump, as he has often done over the past 1 1/2 years, proved to be amazingly resilient, keeping his momentum and rampaging to victory in states like New York and Indiana. With no chance of victory, Cruz pulled the plug on his campaign.

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With Trump's decisive victory earlier tonight, the GOP is now looking to rally around Donald Trump, who, barring some sort of a miracle, will be the Republican Presidential nominee.

Earlier tonight, Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, posted this Tweet:

".@realDonaldTrump will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton"

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With Trump now essentially having the nomination in the bag, his attention will surely shift to Hillary Clinton, who is extremely close to locking down the Democratic nomination.

At the very least, the battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will be mammothly entertaining.

Filed under: General Knowledge