INDIANAPOLIS -- Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump extended their respective leads on Tuesday, but a win by John Kasich in Ohio now has a lot of Republicans gearing up for the possibility of a contested convention – and a fight for the party's future.
Republican National Convention chief strategist Sean Spicer said despite rumbles about a move to nominate someone other than Trump, the party was going to "let the process work itself out."
"There's three candidates now who believe they have a path to the nomination, so from an RNC perspective, we'll continue to prepare for all contingencies, including an open convention," Spicer said.
For his part, Trump said he believes he'll win outright.
"But I can tell you, if we didn't, and if we're 20 votes short or if we're -- if we're, you know, 100 short, and we're at 1100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400, because we're way ahead of everybody, I don't think you can say that we don't get it automatically," Trump said. "I think it would be -- I think you'd have riots. I think you'd have riots. I'm representing a tremendous -- many, many millions of people."
Scott Pegg, professor and chair of IUPUI's political science department, said it's unlikely much maneuvering goes on.
"I guess my question for the anti-Trump Republicans is where were you in October, where were you in August, where were you in November when this concerted effort might have made a difference?" Pegg said. "I think the horse has left the barn."
The next big primaries come next Tuesday in Utah and Arizona. Indiana's primary falls on May 3. The Hoosier state may be unusually important to the Republican race this year with its 57 winner-take-all delegates.
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