ANALYSIS/OPINION:

If Donald Trump wins Indiana, it’s over, folks — he wins the GOP presidential nomination.

On Sunday evening, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich made a deal — one of desperation, some are calling it — since both are mathematically eliminated from getting the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination outright.

So they’re doing the next best thing (in their mind): Deny Mr. Trump the nomination.

As part of the pact, Mr. Cruz gets Indiana all to himself, entering a one-on-one race with Mr. Trump. Mr. Kasich has agreed to dedicate all his resources in Oregon and New Mexico — where Mr. Cruz has agreed not to play.

By announcing their agreement publicly, Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz signaled to their respective political action committees where and when to spend money, and have given a roadmap to the #NeverTrump crowd for the next several contests.

Indiana is pivotal in the Republican primary because of the number of delegates it holds (57) and its place on the calendar (May 3). On Tuesday, Pennsylvania and most of the Acela corridor will have gone to the polls, and it’s expected Mr. Trump will have easy wins. And after his victory in New York last week, momentum will surely be on the side of businessman entering the Indiana contest.

A CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday, showed Mr. Trump with a five-point lead over Mr. Cruz in Indiana. But pollsters agree it’s a tight race with much at stake. FiveThirtyEight’s forecast, which includes polls as well as analysis for Indiana, has Mr. Cruz slightly on top.

If Mr. Trump doesn’t win Indiana, he may not have a path to the majority of delegates, and Mr. Cruz is gunning for it, according to the University of Virginia Center for Politics “Sabato’s Crystal Ball.”

“The anti-Trump forces appear to be hoping to re-run their successful Wisconsin strategy in Indiana, another Midwestern state that awards its delegates winner-take-all statewide and by congressional district,” The University of Virginia’s team writes in their blog. “That means the statewide winner, in all likelihood, will win the lion’s share of the delegates. Cruz is very clearly gunning for Indiana, and Trump may not have a path to a delegate majority without it.”

The UVA team believes Indiana mirrors Missouri, in that they’re both Midwestern states with a Southern orientation — and Missouri was one of the tightest races this year with Mr. Trump’s margin of victory only about 0.2 percentage points over Mr. Cruz. Mr. Kasich participated in that contest, so with him out of the race, plus millions more dedicated to pro-Cruz advertising, and #NeverTrump television ads out in force, Mr. Cruz will likely get a larger share of the vote.

Many of the congressional districts in Ohio, near the Indiana border, went solidly for Mr. Kasich, so what’s unknown is how much of that vote transfers over the border, and whether Kasich voters would be willing to strategically pull the lever for Mr. Cruz, whom many of them may not like.

Indiana holds 8 percent of the delegates left to acquire in the GOP race, and it has about 15 percent of the delegates Mr. Trump needs to win in order to cinch the nomination outright.

Mr. Trump knows what the stakes are and has been campaigning aggressively in the state. He’s also accused Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich of “colluding.” Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz’s alliance also may create a significant public blowback — it does perpetuate Mr. Trump’s narrative that the game is rigged and it’s only him against the establishment.

That’s why if Mr. Trump wins Indiana, he’s won the race. It will mean he’s overcome and defeated the best of what his two competitors had against him, it will prove the #NeverTrump folks noneffective, and it will give Mr. Trump the winning narrative he needs to go into California and sweep up. Mr. Cruz, his nearest competitor, will be painted as a loser, and Mr. Trump will have an aura of inevitability.

People like winners, and Mr. Trump will have proven that he can win, even in the toughest of circumstances. If he wins Indiana, he will roll into the GOP convention in July with the number of delegates he needs to win the nomination in the first round of voting.

If he doesn’t? All bets are off.

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