Ted Cruz Lost Big In Indiana

Ted Cruz needed Indiana, but it appears that most of Indiana doesn't need Cruz. On Tuesday, the conservative senator from Texas lost the Hoosier State's Republican primary to longtime frontrunner Donald Trump. Along with the overall vote, Cruz lost out on Indiana's delegates. The loss put him in an even bleaker situation mathematically, and he ultimately suspended his campaign as a result.

When the polls closed, the Republican primary was called almost instantly in favor of Trump. Trump immediately picked up 30 of Indiana's Republican delegates, which are allocated on a winner-take-all basis per the state's overall vote. With about 96 percent of the vote in, Trump had also won at least 21 of the state's remaining Republican delegates, which are allocated based on each congressional district's vote. Cruz, on the other hand, had failed to garner any delegates.

Following Tuesday's loss in Indiana, Cruz no longer saw the path to victory that he had continued to tout, despite falling far, far behind Trump in the delegate count. Cruz announced on Tuesday night from Indianapolis that he was suspending his campaign. At the time of his announcement, Cruz had not been allotted any of Indiana's Republican delegates.

Tuesday was just the latest in a long streak of losses that Cruz had suffered to Trump. In fact, Cruz had not won a primary election outright since the very beginning of April, when he won 36 delegates in the state of Wisconsin. In the waning days of his campaign, Cruz appeared to be trying out several different tactics to turn the tides in his favor. He brought on Carly Fiorina as his running mate last week, and he had reportedly made an agreement with John Kasich to split up the remaining states in a coordinated effort to stop Trump.

Despite these efforts, Cruz wasn't able to pull off a victory when he perhaps needed it the most. "From the beginning, I've said that I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory," Cruz said on Tuesday. "Tonight, I'm sorry to say, it appears that path has been foreclosed." He's right that the path appears to be gone. Even if Cruz won all of the remaining delegates on the Republican side, he wouldn't have nearly enough to secure the nomination. Not to mention, it would have been highly unlikely — dare I say, impossible — for Cruz to have won all of the remaining delegates, particularly after Tuesday's performance in Indiana, a state where he had recently campaigned vigorously. In other words, it was only a matter of time until the Cruz-Fiorina train came to the end of the line.