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Major anti-Trump forces go all in on crucial primary in U.S. state of Indiana

Xinhua, April 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

Major anti-Trump forces within the U.S. Republican Party are all funneling their cash into the state of Indiana, which is seen crucial for them to reset the race and stop the party's front-runner from gaining enough delegates to win the presidential nomination outright.

Club for Growth Action, one of the best-funded anti-Trump super-PACs, has already spent at least 1.7 million U.S. dollars, mostly on a statewide TV buy, opposing the New York real estate billionaire in Indiana, according to a report from the TheHill news daily on Thursday. The state will hold a primary on May 3.

"Indiana is crucial...We think Ted Cruz must win and will win Indiana," Doug Sacheleben, spokesman for the group, was quoted as saying.

Three other major Republican-aligned anti-Trump groups are also homing in on Indiana to stop Trump's momentum, which has soared after his big wins in New York and the five northeastern states including delegate-rich Pennsylvania in the past two weeks, said the report.

Our Principles PAC -- an anti-Trump group funded by the party's mega-donors including billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer and the Ricketts family, which owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team, is spending seven figures in Indiana opposing Trump, said the group's chair Katie Packer, who declined to reveal the exact amount of spending.

"We have got full court press going there," Packer told the TheHill news daily, "We have got a full mail program, digital -- it's really the scope of what we did in Wisconsin."

"We certainly see Indiana as crucial for Trump. If he doesn't win Indiana he can't get to 1,237," she added, referring to the number of delegates needed to win the nomination at the first round of ballot in the party's national convention.

Our Principles PAC,which has already spent more than 16 million dollars opposing Trump in primary and caucus states, insists that the billionaire could still be denied the necessary 1237 delegates.

Also joining the Indiana assault against Trump is the digital-focused Never Trump group, which has been running digital ads in Indiana since Monday, according to the report.

The ads designed by the Never Trump group are a mix of attacks against Trump and messages designed to persuade voters who don't like Trump to act strategically and vote for Cruz.

Cruz and John Kasich declared on Sunday night to join forces in a bid to deny Trump the nomination. Both of them are already "mathematically dead" in the quest for a majority of delegates.

"Ted Cruz has the opportunity to reset the race" in Indiana, said the group's spokesman Rory Cooper, "it gets harder, much, much harder if Ted Cruz is not successful in Indiana."

Indiana will be a winner-take-most state. The statewide winner will take 30 delegates plus a substantial portion of the remaining 27 congressional district delegates.

Trump now sits at 987 delegates and needs fewer than 50 percent of the remaining delegates to win the nomination at the first-round ballot. Both Cruz and Kasich are mathematically unable to reach that mark without a contested convention. Enditem