The Ohio Primary Results Will Be Crucial

All eyes will be on Ohio tomorrow, as the delegate-rich Buckeye State could potentially have considerable influence over who becomes the Republican and Democratic nominees. Of the five states holding primaries on Tuesday, Ohio and Florida, another delegate-rich state, are likely to dominate political discussion and analysis as both Republican and Democratic candidates have injected hundreds of hours and millions of dollars into wooing voters across the state. The wait for Ohio's presidential primary results is likely to be a nail-biting affair that begins as soon as polls close.

Results from Ohio's primary are expected to begin rolling in as soon as polls close Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET, but there's no telling when 100 percent of the votes will have been counted and an official winner declared. More often than not, news outlets announce a state's projected winner long before each and every vote has been counted. However, Ohio's winner-take-all status in the Republican primary could see the GOP contest drag out a tad longer unless one candidate manages to nab a significant lead early on.

Republican presidential candidates are jockeying for 66 delegates in Ohio on Tuesday, as Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders will be proportionately awarded their share of 143 pledged delegates in accordance to the state's primary results.

For Republicans, Ohio's primary could seal the nomination. If Trump wins both Ohio and Florida's winner-take-all primaries he will significantly widen the current lead he holds over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and find it fairly easy to capture the remaining 1,237 delegates needed to secure himself as the Republican nominee. However, if Trump loses Ohio to John Kasich, his road to the Republican nomination becomes more challenging, although not impossible. A Trump loss in both Florida, which doles out 99 delegates and is the home state of Marco Rubio, and Ohio could result in none of the four Republican presidential candidates obtaining the nomination before the party's convention.

Ohio has already proved to be an exciting battleground for the Democratic primary. Earlier in the election, Sanders sued the state over a ban that would have kept 17-year-olds who would turn 18 after the primary but before the general election from voting. An Ohio state judge ruled in favor of young voters Friday in a separate legal challenge to the ban, The Hill reported. It's unclear, however, if the ruling — or the addition of 17-year-olds at the polls — will be enough to give Sanders a win in Ohio, where Clinton currently holds a narrow lead.

A lot of emphasis has been placed on primaries held in the First Four states and on Super Tuesday, but in an election year as crowded and heavily contested as 2016, winner-take-all primaries like Ohio's will likely have a far greater influence on the future of the race. Meaning, no matter if results come flood in early or trickle in late, Ohio is a state to watch Tuesday evening.