Ted Cruz Quits After Indiana Swoons for Trump; Bernie Sanders Wins, Too

Indiana never really gets to have a say in the presidential races. In electoral cycles past, the wannabes have long dropped out by now. The victors are prepping for their convention lovefests. But today, Indiana voters had a chance to put a definitive mark on the 2016 primaries.

Illinois' Republican neighbors to the east showed they want Donald Trump. Soon after the polls closed, the major networks projected Trump the winner in a "decisive" win. Maybe the Bobby Knight endorsement made the difference. ;-P

Trump issued a thank you via Twitter, his favorite communications device, with his best "What, Me Worry" photo.

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Trump also took the obligatory swipe at his primary foe: "Ted Cruz consistently said that he will, and must, win Indiana. ... He should drop out of the race-stop wasting time." Six minutes earlier, he called Cruz a "wacko."

By 7:30 p.m. Central time, Cruz obliged and dropped out of the race. Adding injury to insult, Cruz bopped his adoring wife Heidi in the nose after he told supporters it was all over.

Cruz's campaign seemed to think Indiana was just like Wisconsin, where he dealt Trump an embarrassing defeat. “This is just re-running Wisconsin,” one Cruz adviser told National Review. “We have a blueprint, and it works.”

No, it didn't. Indiana is nothing like Wisconsin. As Illinois did, Indiana landed in the Trump column.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich didn't even bother to try here. So far, Kasich has won ... Ohio. If only Kasich could've been governor in more states, he might've secured more electoral votes. He chose to spend his time in Oregon. (Oregon? Really.)

On the Democratic side, the electoral prediction machine at FiveThirtyEight gave Hillary Clinton a 90 percent chance of winning Indiana tonight. Early returns suggested Clinton would not have to wait until midnight, as she did in Illinois, to learn the outcome.

But as the tally mounted, early optimism of a Clinton win receded as Bernie Sanders took a lead with 70 percent of the vote counted. At 8:20 p.m., three networks projected Sanders the winner. His victory will be hollow, however. Clinton will still walk away with a significant number of delegates when all is said and done.