Vosem, you said a couple days ago that Cruz is favored to win in Indiana. What made you change your mind?
I said this prior to the mid-Atlantic primary; some of the patterns shown seem to indicate Trump has developed real momentum (especially the results in rural Pennsylvania as compared to Upstate New York very clearly show Trump gained a significant amount of support over the course of that week). So I now think Trump is likelier than not to carry Indiana; as I've said before, demographically certain tendencies in the Northeast (especially age) are totally different than in the rest of the country, which means it's not impossible for his success there not to translate to the rest of the country, but momentum being limited to just one region is extremely unusual in what is effectively a two-candidate presidential primary.
The Clout Research poll has made me less certain, because it shows basically no change from the pre-mid-Atlantic numbers. If we accept it as correct (Clout has very little track record, but what exists is generally pretty good), it can indicate one of three scenarios: either that the momentum was never real outside the Northeast (in which case Cruz is probably on track to win Indiana as he was beforehand), that the Fiorina choice actually worked and has caused support to return to Cruz (in which case Cruz is probably on track to win Indiana), or that the shift that occurred in the Northeast was in the way undecideds behave on Election Day, in which case Trump is on track to win Indiana regardless.
The other scenario, of course, is that the Clout poll is simply wrong. Clout is no fabled gold standard.
The fourth possibility is that the Fiorina choice worked in the moment (remember that the Clout poll was taken over a period of only a few hours
immediately after the Fiorina announcement) but will prove to be an ignis fatuus over the weekend.
