About 66,000 Indiana Republicans voted before the Cruz-Kasich alliance

Ted Cruz and John Kasich struck a deal on Sunday night that Kasich would stop campaigning in Indiana, but the nonaggression accord came too late for roughly 66,000 Republicans in the state who voted early.

New data provided to POLITICO by the Indiana Secretary of State’s office showed that as of Tuesday morning the state had received ballots from 66,137 Republicans. The Kasich-Cruz agreement, in which Kasich agreed not to contest the state was struck late Sunday night, meaning the almost all of those votes were cast before the widely publicized accord.

Many mail in their ballots, meaning the total number of votes cast before the agreement is possibly even higher.

The early Kasich votes could make a difference in a close race between Donald Trump and Cruz in a state both campaigns have tagged as crucial.

Kasich's support has ranged from 16 percent to 20 percent in the three most recent Indiana public polls. If the conservative end of that range is applied to the early voting Republicans, that means nearly 10,000 voters may have voted for Kasich before his campaign gave up on the state.