“TRUMP is scary,” says Jim Adkins, the manager of a branch of Olive Garden, a restaurant chain, as he is coming out of the banquet hall of the St Peter & Paul Macedonian Church, where he just cast his vote for Hillary Clinton. Mr Adkins usually votes for the Republican Party, but this time he overcame his dislike for Mrs Clinton, he says, because she is “the lesser evil". An election volunteer, who overhears the conversation, says numerous Republican voters are defecting to the other side, thanks to the seemingly unstoppable rise of Donald Trump.These defections will play a role in the November elections, but in the primary election in Indiana on May 3rd only Republican votes counted for Mr Trump—and he won big. In spite of the local Republican establishment’s best efforts to halt his advance, he received 53% of the votes, compared with only 37% for Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who was the figurehead of a “Never Trump” alliance. John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, had ceased to campaign in Indiana to improve Mr Cruz’s chances; he got a measly 8%. Most of Indiana’s 57 delegates are likely to go to Mr Trump. He is now almost certain to reach the 1,237 bound delegates required to get the Republican nomination, as he leads the polls in both California and New Jersey, the two last large states that have yet to vote. (California holds 172 delegates and New Jersey 51; Mr ...
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