The Battle Lines Are Drawn: Trump Preps for General Election

Opinion: With the #NeverTrump movement defeated in Indiana, the billionaire is looking to unite the wounded Republican party

By Lucas Pringle

Published at 6 p.m. ET

Amid thunderous applause, the flashing of countless cameras and the screams of adoring supporters, Donald Trump proclaimed that the sight was “a beautiful thing to behold.” With arms outstretched, he said the infamous words that were on the mind of every supporter, political analyst and reporter in the building. The words that had been first uttered in Trump Tower, but had traveled around the country, through a series of pundit-stumping victories, and now to the final battleground of Indiana: “We’re going to make America great again!”

Trump was celebrating a decisive and poll-beating victory in the Hoosier State, in which he beat rival Ted Cruz by almost 20 percent. For the #NeverTrump movement, Indiana was their final stand. If Trump lost, or at the very least won by a small margin, there was still hope for a contested convention. But if he won, it was over.

As the results crawled in, something became adamantly clear to America: they had not seen the end of Donald Trump. As the night drew on, Trump added two political-scalps to his growing collection, that of Ted Cruz and John Kasich. With the two remaining challengers dropping out, Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

For the Republican Party this is a dire end to a fever-dream of a primary season. A real-estate mogul turned reality-TV star turned presidential candidate eviscerated the most qualified selection of Republican candidates in a generation, capturing the imagination of disaffected Americans and whipping them into a frenzy. The explanations and reasons behind his monumental victory will no doubt be debated for years to come, but for the Trump campaign, the only thing worth focusing on is the upcoming general election.

Alongside this decisive victory, Bernie Sanders was celebrating a battle won in Indiana. Beating Clinton in the state will have come as a relief for Sanders, who recently lost four out of the five primaries subsequent to his defeat in New York, but it is too little too late. New York tipped Clinton’s lead from a challenge to virtually insurmountable, leaving Sanders needing to win 64 percent of the remaining delegates. While this is certainly not impossible, no Democrat nominee has ever come back from such a brutal position. The Sanders campaign’s last hope is California, but even here they are trailing by 15 points in recent polls.

While the Sanders campaign may be denying their stark reality, both the Clinton and Trump campaigns are already gearing up for the general. But despite the talk of a ‘landslide election’ from the Trump campaign, the path ahead looks very dark for the Donald. While it is true that Clinton faces low approval ratings, she is still miles ahead of Donald Trump, whom two thirds of Americans view unfavorably. When women and minority groups are polled this figure rises dramatically.

Trump does not only face problems in the public, but within his own party as well. In the hours following his victory, news outlets scoured the country for comment from Republican leaders, yet the resounding silence from a number of them speaks volumes. No former Republican presidents or presidential nominees (bar Bob Dole) plan to attend the Republican Convention in July. The Republican establishment faced an onslaught of attacks from Trump, and while it continues to support him publicly, Trump will have to fight to keep his own party in line for the next six months.

November may be months away, but the battle lines have been drawn, and for Trump to win, there would need to be a substantial shift in many states. Trump has undoubtedly succeeded in creating an energized movement of disillusioned Republicans, but time will tell to see if he can translate this primary success into presidential victory.

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