As primaries are held around the country, no presidential candidate from either party has emerged as the clear-cut winner.

As primaries are held around the country, no presidential candidate from either party has emerged as the clear-cut winner.

That means Indiana's May 3 primary is becoming increasingly important in the race for the White House. It could be bigger than the state’s historic 2008 primary when only Democrat voters had a choice of presidential candidates.

Numbers released Friday for Marion County, so far, show double the amount of people voting early compared to 2008.

While one eighth grade class at Mt. Vernon High School in Hancock County isn’t old enough to legally vote, Decision 2016 is front and center in the classroom.

Social studies classes in the school's eighth grade academy are getting active in the upcoming presidential election. Students have been working in groups to research candidates and later cast their votes individually.

"I learned that the candidate’s opinions differ greatly about all their policies, like immigration," student Madalyn Owen said. "Donald Trump doesn't really want immigration and other people like Bernie Sanders want to allow people to become citizens."

Isabella Garza researched Hillary Clinton for class, but chose to vote for Bernie Sanders.

"Just hearing everything that Bernie did really made me want to vote for him," she said.

Also part of the Clinton research team was Ethan Sweet who voted for Donald Trump.

"I feel that Donald Trump has good policies that will benefit the country later on and immigration is a big problem and they are taking other people's jobs,” he said.

The eighth grade class casted their votes for Indiana's primary, which included candidates who are no longer on the ballot.

Bernie Sanders won the class’s Democrat ticket with 57 percent of the vote and Ted Cruz won the Republican ticket with 26 percent of the popular vote among six candidates.

The class will later hold a mock presidential election.

As part of another class project, students used data from various sources to determine how Indiana and the country will vote in November.

The information led them to forecast Indiana as a red state, along with Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia.

Illinois, Michigan and New York were among the states forecasted to vote Democrat.

Of the 538 total electoral votes, they believe 275 will go Republican and 263 Democrat.



Read more about Decision 2016

The results surprised some of the students.

"The more populous states happened to be Democrat and they have more electoral votes than some of the Republican states," said student Jacob Benz. "So based on population, you'd expect a Democrat win."

Data came from a number of sources.

"The past 10 elections and whether it was a rural state or a populated state, and the populated states lean more toward Democrat and the more rural states lean toward Republican," said student Miracle Williams.

Groups researched each state. Tessa Freeman was part of the team who forecasted Indiana will go red in November.

"It's Republican because all the areas around Indianapolis are very conservative and I was surprised to find that out," she said.

The projects were created by the school's social studies teachers Marisa Cocokious and Jeff Crague.

"We were trying to make a real-life styled project that the kids would engage in and get excited about," Crague said. "Election and politics can sometimes be boring."

No matter who wins, the 2016 presidential winner will be in office once most of the students are of voting age for the 2020 election.

"They are going to be seniors in high school and they are going to be voting, so it helps them to become more informed voters," Crague said.