If Donald Trump wins most of Indiana's delegates, his path to the nomination will be clear. Even if Bernie Sanders wins the state, he will likely wake up with less of a chance of being the nominee. In what has become one of the most crucial contests of the entire Republican presidential race, tonight's Indiana primary offers three possible outcomes -- and two of them are bad news for Ted Cruz and the "Stop Trump" movement. Indiana is one of two key states remaining in the Republican primary. And after Indiana voters go to the polls today, there will only be one major night of primaries left. Polls close in Indiana at 6 pm local time — that's 6 pm Eastern for most of the state, and 7 pm Eastern in 12 counties in northwest and southwest Indiana. Donald Trump has defeated his Republican rivals in six straight contests. In Indiana, he could demoralize them. The delegate races on both sides are tight. For Republicans, their crowded field is splitting up the votes. For Democrats, the calendar could favor Bernie Sanders over the next several weeks. Eight months remain until a general election that might force a choice between the preposterous Trump candidacy and a bright, accomplished woman who is widely disliked and distrusted. On Saturday, Democrats in Nevada will choose between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in what has been dubbed the "First in the West" caucuses. Clinton once had a large lead, but not anymore. The next primary date is Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have been battling in the South Carolina Republican primary. After a contentious debate, Trump leads but a national Republican poll shows Cruz gaining. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are on the trail in Nevada for the Democratic caucus. Bernie Sanders’ campaign has reserved time for television advertisements in at least four Super Tuesday states, according to media buying sources. The initial buys are in Minnesota, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma and cost between $30,000 and $50,000 per state. In 1975, an obscure former one-term Southern governor using the countrified name “Jimmy” set his sights on a goal so audacious he initially wouldn’t utter the word “president”—even to his own wife. James Earl Carter was no hayseed, though. A hyper-competitive Naval Academy grad and former submarine captain, he was actually a savvy political operator. He’d figured out a couple of things that Democratic Party heavyweights had not. The first was that after Richard Nixon’s presidency the American people were looking for someone they could trust more than someone with a traditional political résumé. When the biggest newspaper in his home state of Georgia spoofed his bid with the headline “Jimmy Who?,” Carter figured he had the advantage of surprise. The presidential nomination process finally gets underway Monday when Iowa holds first-in-the-nation caucuses in the 99 counties across the state. The 2016 presidential contenders are begging their Iowa supporters to get to the caucuses Monday and Donald Trump, true to form, is in-your-face about it. "You're from Iowa," Trump told a Dubuque crowd Saturday. "Are you afraid of snow?" Both the Democratic and Republican races are close contests in Iowa, and pollsters say surprises are likely. So although businessman Donald Trump has opened up a lead on the GOP side and Hillary Clinton still narrowly leads on the Democratic side, there’s a lot of room for change going into Monday night’s caucuses. In just four days, people from across the state of Iowa will head to their local community centers, gymnasiums and churches to kick off the process of picking the next president of the United States. Here's a primer on what to expect:
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