Live Blog: Indiana Votes

Good Evening!

We’re still hanging in here with the primaries given that this year’s  Most Delusional Campaign and Candidate award has three contenders still vying for trophy.  Maybe it has something to do with the vast level of ignorance when it comes to math, science, and basic recognition of facts and reality that permeates the country.  I know that I’ve seen an appalling increase in lack of math, statistics, and basic knowledge since my undergrad days.

Five-Thirty-Eight argues there could be three possible outcomes tonight for the GOP,  Well, yes, that’s true.  But, which will it be?

Donald Trump may be a runaway train. He has blasted through his 50 percent “ceiling,” outperforming his polls and winning a clear majority in the last six states to cast ballots. All that success occurred in the Northeast, however, so here’s the question: Is Trump wrapping up this nomination, or is he just really strong in the Northeast?

We’ll get some answers in Indiana on Tuesday. It’s a culturally conservative state where many political observers (including yours truly) thought Ted Cruz had a good shot at coalescing the anti-Trump vote. Indiana is also, in terms of demographics, slightly below average for Trump. In other words, the #StopTrump movement, if it’s at all serious, should win the Hoosier State. And yet, Trump leads in most of the polling there.

Clinton has no party scheduled tonight and is clearly focused on the General Election.

Hillary Clinton is ready to put the Democratic primary in her rear view mirror and get to work on Donald Trump.

She made that abundantly clear in an exclusive interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Tuesday in West Virginia. Clinton also said that the FBI has still not contacted her regarding her private email server, and the Democratic front-runner detailed under what circumstances she would release transcripts of her paid speeches.

“I’m really focused on moving into the general election,” Clinton said when asked about the primary election Tuesday in Indiana. “And I think that’s where we have to be, because we’re going to have a tough campaign against a candidate who will literally say or do anything. And we’re going to take him on at every turn on what’s really important to the people of our country.”

Clinton shrugged off questions about Bernie Sanders, who is vowing to challenge Clinton all the way to the Democratic National Convention in July.

“We’re going to unify the party, and we’re going to have a great convention and we’re going to be absolutely focused on making our case to the American public against Donald Trump, and I think he will be a part of that,” Clinton said.

Giving the most clear picture of her campaign’s general election strategy from the candidate’s own mouth, she said she will try to avoid getting into the mud with Trump and keep her attacks focused on his policy and fitness to do the job.

Exit poll information has begun to be released.

Preliminary exit poll results from Indiana’s Democratic primary show a contest with turnout that’s higher than usual this year among liberals (notably strong liberals), young voters, whites and those focused on a candidate who’s honest or cares about people like them – all some of Bernie Sanders’ better groups to date.

…

Clinton’s ideas are seen as more realistic by Indiana voters – nearly eight in 10 vs. more than six in 10 for Sanders – but the gap’s a bit smaller than usual in preliminary exit poll results. It’s been 76 to 57 percent in the nine states where the question’s been asked before.

Clinton’s also done well so far by linking herself with Barack Obama. More Indiana voters think the next president should continue Obama’s policies, half, while fewer, just more than a third, prefer a more liberal direction. But, again, the gap’s smaller than usual. Supporters of more liberal policies are more numerous than average in Indiana, a group that’s voted heavily for Sanders in past contests.

Meanwhile, back in Bernie Land we see more talk about a contested convention. Some of the press aren’t so enthusiastic.  Some of them are.

What Sanders is proposing is a necessary quest—and a realistic one. Already, he is better positioned than any recent insurgent challenger to engage in rules and platform debates, as well as in dialogues about everything from the vice-presidential nomination to the character of the fall campaign. As veteran political analyst Rhodes Cook noted in a survey prepared for The Atlantic, by mid-April, Sanders had exceeded the overall vote totals and percentages of Howard Dean in 2004, Jesse Jackson in 1988, Gary Hart in 1984, and Ted Kennedy in 1980, among others. (While Barack Obama’s 2008 challenge to Clinton began as something of an insurgency, he eventually ran with the solid support of key party leaders like Kennedy.) By the time the District of Columbia votes on June 14, Sanders will have more pledged delegates than any challenger seeking to influence a national convention and its nominee since the party began to democratize its nominating process following the disastrous, boss-dominated convention of 1968.

I prefer Michael Cohen’s take at the Boston Globe.

The same candidate who has been railing against independent voters being disenfranchised, who has called the primary system undemocratic, and who has complained about superdelegates, in general, is now calling on those same superdelegates to vote against Clinton (that would apparently include delegates from the states Clinton has won), even though she will almost certainly have the most pledged delegates and the most votes. In head-to-head general election polls, Clinton trounces Trump, but since Sanders trounces him by a bit more, he argues that he should be the nominee.

In the realm of illogical, self-serving, hypocritical, intellectually dishonest political arguments, this is practically the gold standard. But with six weeks to go until the last primary, I have great confidence that the Sanders campaign will find some way to top it.

So, join us as we count down to California by watching the returns from Indiana tonight!!