Roundup: Indiana primaries end with Republican Cruz out, Democrat Sanders winning

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Tuesday bowed out of the race after his defeat in the GOP's Indiana primary, delivering a heavy blow to Republicans eyeing a contested convention this summer to snatch the party's nomination from Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary in Indiana as he was seeking momentum to catch up with Hillary Clinton's almost insurmountable delegate lead.

Though he had earlier on pledged to stay all the way through July's GOP convention, a series of recently massive losses in the northeast U.S. states convinced Cruz that there was no way forward.

"From the beginning, I've said that I would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory," Cruz told his supporters at a rally in Indianapolis, Indiana. "Tonight, I'm sorry to say it appears that the path has been foreclosed."

Though he had already been mathematically eliminated from reaching the 1,237 delegates required to win the nomination on the first ballot at July's GOP convention before Tuesday's Indiana primary, Cruz and the anti-Trump movement within the party had for long hoped to prevent Trump from getting that number and create a contested convention where other candidates might get nominated after the first round of voting.

The suspension of Cruz's candidacy leaves no doubt that Trump, the New York billionaire developer famous for his blunt and occasionally incendiary remarks, would be the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee.

The once crowded Republican field has dwindled. Despite his flagging campaign and winning only one contest, Ohio Governor John Kasich made it clear on Tuesday evening that he would stay in the race.

However, the Kasich campaign's hope to force Trump into a contested convention in July became dimmer after Trump's sweeping victory Tuesday night.

With his big win in Indiana, Trump is guaranteed at least 30 of the state's 57 delegates up for grabs, pushing his delegate count over the 1,000 threshold.

However, Trump is unlikely to formally clinch the nomination until June 7, when California and five other states vote and a total of 303 delegate will be up for grabs.

In order to win the GOP nomination, a candidate must win 1,237 delegates. Trump entered the contest on Tuesday with 956 pledged delegates and another 41 unpledged ones, while Kasich, his only rival now, had only 153.

On the Democratic side, early results with 93.3 percent of all votes in the Indiana primary counted show Sanders won 52.7 percent, compared to Clinton's 47.3 percent.

Mathematically, Sanders' win in Indiana did not change the contour of the Democratic race where Clinton continues to hold a strong delegate lead.

Unlike the Republican presidential nomination contests, Democratic races allocate pledged delegates proportionally. Thus, Sanders' win on Tuesday in Indiana, where 83 pledged delegates were up for grabs, did little to put a dent in Clinton's delegate lead.

Clinton entered the contest on Tuesday with 1,663 pledged delegates, 296 more than Sanders, according to a delegate count by The New York Times.

Also, Clinton was being supported by an overwhelming majority of superdelegates, a group of about 700 Democratic party leaders who could vote for any candidate in the Democratic convention in July.

However, the win could bolster Sanders' pledge to stay in the race through the Democratic National Convention in July despite the Clinton campaign's claim that the race was now over.

"I think we had a good campaign, we ran hard. But, you know, I'm really focused on moving into the general election," said Clinton on Tuesday in an interview with MSNBC.

While many Clinton's backers were exasperated by Sanders' refusal to drop out of the race now and blasted the senator from Vermont for damaging party unity, a new NBC News/Survey Monkey poll showed on Tuesday that 57 percent of Democrats now said that Sanders should stay in the race through the Democratic convention in July. Endi