It’s Super Tuesday: Northeast Edition as we get close to the end here in the Republican presidential primary. Donald Trump seems poised for a big win, but is there anything that could stop him? He leads the delegate count by a considerable number, but Ted Cruz has been making key plays in delegate elections, setting himself up for a second-ballot upset should the Republican National Convention get that far. 
 
 Today, however, is where we get a better look at the inevitability of Donald J. Trump. 
 
 The real estate mogul leads in the delegate count with 845 bound delegates – nearly three hundred more than Cruz, who has 559. Up for grabs tonight are delegates in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Connecticut – a total of 172. A total sweep isn’t likely in any of the states, but a solid showing by Trump will make a lot of people nervous. 
 
 The States 
 
 The territory – the northeastern states where Ted Cruz was never expected to do well – under normal circumstances would be ripe for John Kasich. These moderate-to-liberal-leaning Republicans are his people. However, the mere existence of Trump, a man from the northeast and someone who has somehow up-ended the natural order of politics (in a less-than-positive way), means that Kasich will have to fight very hard for the votes in these states. Cruz’s best chances lay in Pennsylvania, the only state where he is consistently polling in second place (however, he is still at best 14 points behind Trump, mind you – more on the polling below). 
 
 Cruz’s best states may ultimately be behind him, but a joint effort between he and Kasich seem to be their last hope to keep Trump from getting the 1,237 delegates that would ensure him a first ballot win in July. 
 
 The Polling 
 
 As mentioned above, the polling looks great for Trump and bad for everyone else. Over at RealClearPolitics, the averages are all at least 20 points in his favor. 
 
 In Pennsylvania, the average is at about 20 points separating Trump and Cruz. Trump has only broken 50% in one of those polls, but has been close in two others – a 48% and 49% – at minimum an 8-point jump in a matter of weeks. One Maryland poll has Trump over 50%, while two others have him in the 40s. 
 
 However, Trump’s best states are the remaining three. Mind you, Delaware only has one poll out there, and in the other two states, Trump’s biggest leads are shown in polls from Public Policy Polling. Not that it’s likely Trump is actually in danger of being overtaken by Kasich, but it’s incredibly difficult to determine where the final numbers will actually go – we expect Trump to pretty much sweep the night, but we have no idea by how much. 
 
 The Process 
 
 As the voters go to the polls, the rules for each state (as they are wont to do) vary wildly. Here are the basics: 
 
 Pennsylvania – Winner-take-all in the statewide delegate race, but a loophole primary for the districts. It’s also a closed primary, which on average have produced worse results for Trump than open primaries. Maryland – A basic winner-take-all in both statewide and district results, along with a closed party primary. Connecticut – This state is a winner-take-most state. Also closed party. Rhode Island – A proportional delegate primary, with a modified party primary system (meaning major party voters have to stick to their party, but independents can vote in whichever party primary they want). Delaware – Winner-take-all, and a closed party primary. 
 
 Analysis 
 
 While we expect Trump to win, by how much will be the interesting question. Four of the states, including the big one – Pennsylvania – meaning a good ground game by the other two candidates could throw a wrench into Trump’s plans. Rhode Island is the only state that will allow independents to vote in a major party’s primary, which could end up being where we see Trump’s largest margin of victory. 
 
 If you are #NeverTrump, it will not be a good night for you. The bright spots will come in the form of lower Trump turnout/support where the closed primaries are concerned. 

 A sudden political alliance between Ted Cruz and John Kasich against Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump quickly ran into speed bumps Monday that exposed the plan’s risks and called into question whether it would work. 
 
 In their unconventional last-ditch scheme, Kasich said he would clear the way for Cruz to face Trump in Indiana while Cruz would return the favor in Oregon and New Mexico. The plan aimed to produce what anti-Trump Republicans have yearned for since the fall: a one-on-one showdown with the mogul. 
 
 But less than 12 hours after the pact was announced, Kasich undercut the idea by declaring Monday that his supporters in Indiana should still vote for him. The Ohio governor also plans to keep raising money in the state and to meet Tuesday with Republican Gov. Mike Pence. 
 
 Cruz, meanwhile, said that Kasich was “pulling out” of the state. A super PAC supporting the senator from Texas also said it would continue to air an anti-Kasich ad in the state — a sign the Cruz camp fears Kasich could still peel away enough support to sink Cruz’s chances here. 
 
 The tumult fueled doubts about the arrangement among voters and Republican elites, who worried that Cruz and Kasich have handed Trump a ready-made argument that the party establishment is plotting against him. The mogul said as much in a series of stump speeches on the eve of primary voting on Tuesday, when Trump is poised to rack up delegates in five Eastern states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. 
 
 The Fix's Chris Cillizza explains why the strategic alliance between Ted Cruz and John Kasich seems destined to fail. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) 
 
 “Honestly, it shows such total weakness, and it’s pathetic when two longtime insider politicians — establishment guys, whether you like it or not — have to collude, have to get together to try to beat a guy that really speaks what the people want,” Trump said at a rally in Warwick, R.I. 
 
 [Cruz has more to gain from deal with Kasich, according to delegate rules] 
 
 Cruz and Kasich are bound by two self-serving goals: winning enough delegates between them to prevent Trump from clinching the nomination outright and trying to demonstrate that he isn’t favored by most Republicans. 
 
 If those goals are met, July’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland is likely to be a free-for-all offering Cruz and, perhaps, Kasich a shot at the nomination. 
 
 Already on Monday, many Republicans were dubious. 
 
 “It’s hard to assess whether it will have any significant impact,” former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and is neutral now, said by email. “Voters tend to stick to their preferred candidate for personal, not tactical, reasons.” 
 
 The marriage of political convenience was announced in separate news releases late Sunday night by the two campaigns. But it was immediately put to the test early Monday, when Kasich said at a news conference at Philadelphia’s Penrose Diner that any Indiana voter inclined to vote for him should do so. 
 
 Ted Cruz appears with his daughters Caroline and Catherine at a campaign event in Columbus, Ind. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters) 
 
 “I’ve never told ’em not to vote for me,” Kasich said. “They ought to vote for me. But I’m not over there campaigning and spending resources.” 
 
 Just hours earlier, Kasich’s campaign co-chair in Indiana was saying the opposite. “Kasich is asking his supporters in Indiana to vote for Cruz so Trump does not win Indiana,” Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard Cruz told the Indianapolis Star, suggesting that Cruz would do the same with his voters in Oregon and New Mexico. 
 
 Kasich scrapped his public events in Indiana, but he still plans to meet with Pence — as Cruz and Trump did last week — and to hold a fundraiser in Indiana on Tuesday, according to Kasich campaign consultant Pete Seat. 
 
 The announcements on Sunday did not specifically say what the candidates’ voters should do, but the intent was clear: to try to help Cruz win Indiana on May 3 and to help Kasich claim Oregon on May 17 and New Mexico on June 7. 
 
 [Is Indiana the last stand for the ‘Never Trump’ movement?] 
 
 Outside groups supporting Cruz and Kasich and opposed to Trump appeared mostly keen on the plan. But the pro-Cruz super PAC Trusted Leadership said it planned to continue broadcasting an anti-Kasich ad in Indiana while ceasing plans to air ads in Oregon and New Mexico. 
 
 Speaking to reporters before a rally here in Borden, Cruz said it was “big news today that John Kasich has decided to pull out of Indiana to give us a head-to-head contest with Donald Trump.” He said the division of resources in key primary states “made sense from both campaigns.” 
 
 At Cruz’s rally, where he did not mention he was ceding Oregon and New Mexico, there was some skepticism about whether the plan would help the senator from Texas in next week’s primary or instead bolster Trump. 
 
 “It could go either way,” said Pat Cambron of Borden, who is deciding between Cruz and Trump. 
 
 “It might be a little late,” said Mary Jean Halbleighb, a Cruz supporter from Floyds Knobs. 
 
 [On policies, Ted Cruz shifts his stance to suit a fractured GOP] 
 
 The deal was discussed in a private meeting last week between Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe and Kasich chief strategist John Weaver on the sidelines of the Republican National Committee’s spring meeting in Hollywood, Fla., said a person with knowledge of the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The deal was finalized Sunday in phone calls between the two advisers. 
 
 Limited public polling in Indiana has shown that Cruz stands the best chance of stopping Trump on May 3. Cruz and his allies were worried about Kasich pulling critical votes away from him in the Hoosier State. 
 
 Kasich’s campaign said it sees similarities between Oregon, New Mexico and the Northeast, where Kasich’s centrist pitch has won him more support than Cruz. But Kasich has struggled overall, notching his only win in his home state. 
 
 Overall, Trump leads the Republican race with 845 delegates, according to the latest Associated Press count. Cruz has 559, while Kasich is much further back with 148. To win the nomination outright, a candidate must clinch 1,237 delegates. If that doesn’t happen, a contested convention will be triggered and the nomination will be up for grabs. 
 
 At a town hall meeting in Rockville, Md., Kasich assured the crowd that an open convention would be good for Republicans and for the country, and suggested that voters were figuring that out. 
 
 “Some guy, when I was walking into this diner this morning, shouted out: ‘It’s so nice to see you, Governor Lincoln!’ ” said Kasich. “You go hit Google and find out what he could mean by that, okay?” 
 
 He was referring to a fact that the campaign later pushed out on Twitter: At seven of 10 open conventions, the eventual winner was not the candidate who entered as the favorite. One of the underdogs who won was Abraham Lincoln in 1860. 
 
 In his back-and-forth with reporters, Cruz was pressed on Trump’s assertion that he was engaging in collusion. Signaling how he intends to define himself against those claims, Cruz quickly pivoted away from his own actions and toward his rival. 
 
 “Yes, I understand the Trump campaign is going to scream and cry,” he said. “That’s what they do.” 
 
 Weigel reported from McKees Rocks, Pa. Jose A. DelReal in West Chester, Pa., contributed to this report. 

 Sometimes people on the East Coast act as if the political world revolves around them (OK, us). It usually doesn’t. Except this time. 
 
 Voters in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island will cast their ballots on Tuesday. These five primaries are expected to provide big batches of delegates to both the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, and the Republican, Donald Trump. (Since delegates are assigned proportionally across the board in Democratic primaries, I’m going to concentrate on the Republican side here.) So just how big is Trump going to win on Tuesday, and where might he lose delegates? (Remember, Trump’s path to the 1,237 delegates necessary to clinch the GOP nomination is on a knife’s edge, so every delegate matters.) 
 
 More Politics 
 
 Check out our live coverage of the April 26 primary elections. 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 Delegates at stake : 28 (15 by congressional district, 13 statewide) 
 
 : 28 (15 by congressional district, 13 statewide) Nate Silver’s “deterministic” Trump projection : 23 delegates (this is, as Nate wrote, “the single most likely” number of delegates Trump will win in the state, in Nate’s view.) 
 
 : 23 delegates (this is, as Nate wrote, “the single most likely” number of delegates Trump will win in the state, in Nate’s view.) Allocation: 15 delegates awarded winner-take-all by congressional district; 13 delegates awarded proportionally statewide with a 50 percent winner-take-all threshold and a 20 percent qualifying threshold. 
 
 The limited polling that’s been conducted in Connecticut has found Trump hovering right around the 50 percent mark, and the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus and polls-only forecasts have him falling just shy of 50 percent. If he wins a majority statewide, though, he’ll get that bundle of 13 delegates. If Trump misses the 50 percent mark, he’ll probably win only six to eight of the statewide delegates, depending on whether Ted Cruz and John Kasich cross 20 percent. 
 
 The other big question is whether Kasich can sneak a win in Connecticut’s 4th Congressional District, which borders New York (Trump will probably win the other four districts). The 4th was home to former Rep. Chris Shays, a moderate, who has endorsed Kasich, and with nearly 60 percent of non-Hispanic whites 25 years or older there holding at least a bachelor’s degree, it’s the type of district in which Trump struggled in the New York primary. If Trump loses the 4th, he’ll lose its three delegates — but he may not lose it. He was beating Kasich 41 percent to 38 percent among college-educated Republicans statewide in the latest Quinnipiac University poll of Connecticut. 
 
 Still, given the obstacles between Trump and a clean sweep of Connecticut’s delegates, it’s still not clear where the state fits in Trump’s fight to collect 1,237 — whether Connecticut will get him closer to that goal or set him further off track. 
 
 Delaware 
 
 Delegates at stake : 16 
 
 : 16 Nate’s deterministic Trump projection : 16 delegates 
 
 : 16 delegates Allocation: winner-take-all 
 
 About 50,000 Republicans voted in the last competitive presidential primary in Delaware back in 2008. If turnout in 2016 is anything like that, Delaware would provide the winner with more delegates per vote than most caucuses and primaries so far. Although there has been little polling in the state, the one poll there has been found Trump with a 55 percent to 18 percent lead over Kasich. Trump is also polling very well along the eastern shore of Maryland, which borders Delaware. 
 
 Trump’s strength here shouldn’t be too surprising given that Delaware has nominated outsiders for major political office before. Remember how tea party star Christine O’Donnell defeated moderate Rep. Mike Castle in the 2010 Republican Senate primary? It was perhaps the most blatant example of primary voters throwing away a Senate seat I’ve ever seen. (Chris Coons, a Democrat, beat O’Donnell in the special election that year.) In other words, Trump is likely to win Delaware and show once again that the GOP primary rules are mostly helping him, not hurting him. 
 
 Maryland 
 
 Delegates at stake : 38 (24 by congressional district, 14 statewide) 
 
 : 38 (24 by congressional district, 14 statewide) Nate’s deterministic Trump projection : 29 delegates 
 
 : 29 delegates Allocation: winner-take-all on the district and statewide level 
 
 Trump is likely to get the vast majority of Maryland’s delegates. He has led in every public poll taken there this year and holds at least a 10 percentage point lead in both our polls-only and polls-plus models. If Cruz and Kasich could somehow combine into one super candidate — let’s call him “John Cruz” — that candidate could beat Trump. The combined share of the two candidates’ vote in Maryland polls has almost always been greater than Trump’s share. But “John Cruz” doesn’t exist; Kasich plays better among moderates and Cruz among very conservative voters. 
 
 If the polling is to be believed, Kasich will beat Trump in the highly educated Washington suburbs, such as Howard County and Montgomery County. But Maryland has one of the most gerrymandered congressional district maps in the nation, which means the voting power of well-educated Republicans around Washington is diluted. A recent Monmouth University poll (which was Trump’s best statewide) showed Trump with a decent chance of winning all eight of the state’s congressional districts. My own guess is that he’ll probably lose one or two districts — most likely the 2nd, 3rd, 5th or the 7th — but even in that scenario he’d exceed Nate’s deterministic delegate projection. 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 Delegates at stake : 71 (54 by congressional district, 17 statewide) 
 
 : 71 (54 by congressional district, 17 statewide) Nate’s deterministic Trump projection : 17 delegates (statewide only) 
 
 : 17 delegates (statewide only) Allocation: loophole by congressional district and winner-take-all statewide 
 
 The big story in Pennsylvania isn’t what happens on Tuesday, but what happens after Tuesday. Only the 17 delegates awarded to the statewide winner will be bound to a candidate — probably Trump, who holds a nearly 20 percentage point lead in FiveThirtyEight’s weighted Pennsylvania polling average. The 54 district delegates (three awarded in each congressional district) will be selected individually by voters, and nowhere on the ballot will it indicate which candidate each delegate supports. 
 
 Even if a delegate currently announces plans to vote for a particular candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, nothing binds that decision. Many of the delegates have said they will vote for the candidate who wins their district, while others have pledged to back the statewide winner. That potentially puts Trump in a very strong position, given his large lead in the polls. I say “potentially” because the pressure on these delegates to change their minds could be immense if it looks like they will be the difference between Trump winning on a first ballot or not. 
 
 Listen to the latest episode of the FiveThirtyEight elections podcast. 
 
 Rhode Island 
 
 Delegates at stake : 19 (6 by congressional district, 13 statewide) 
 
 : 19 (6 by congressional district, 13 statewide) Nate’s deterministic Trump projection : 9 delegates 
 
 : 9 delegates Allocation: proportional by congressional district and statewide 
 
 This will be Rhode Island’s first Republican presidential primary with the nomination still in doubt since 2000. Back then, just more than 35,000 people voted in the primary. If the number of participants is close to that this year, a lot of delegates will be awarded for very few votes (just like in Delaware). 
 
 Beyond that, there’s not a lot to say about Rhode Island. The few polls conducted of the state’s few Republican voters have Trump winning, with Kasich a distant second and Cruz a very distant third. That’s not too surprising since Trump easily won next door in Massachusetts and is expected to also win easily in Connecticut, with nearly 50 percent of the vote. Since so few delegates are at stake and everything is proportional, not a lot will be riding on even moderate changes in the share of the vote each candidate wins here. 
 
 If you’re looking for some sort of excitement, there’s some question as to whether Cruz can reach the 10 percent threshold required to qualify for any delegates. But he probably will — the latest Brown University poll showed him at 14 percent with a lot of undecided voters. In other words, your time on Tuesday is probably better spent concentrating on other states. 

 Republican frontrunner attacks ‘pathetic’ John Kasich and Ted Cruz for lining up their campaigns to deny him votes in Indiana, Oregon and New Mexico 
 
 Donald Trump has decried “collusion” between his Republican rivals to deny him victory in upcoming primary contests as five more states prepared to vote for their preferred presidential candidate. 
 
 Trump fumed over the alliance between John Kasich and Ted Cruz to cede upcoming states to each other in the hope that they can stop the frontrunner winning enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination outright. 
 
 Trump attacked Kasich and Cruz as “truly weak” over the strategy whereby Cruz, a Texas senator, will concentrate his resources in Indiana while Kasich, the Ohio governor, will focus on Oregon and New Mexico instead. 
 
 “Collusion is often illegal in many other industries and yet these two Washington insiders have had to revert to collusion in order to stay alive,” he said. “They are mathematically dead and this act only shows, as puppets of donors and special interests, how truly weak they and their campaigns are.” 
 
 Republicans fearing Trump is on a roll to becoming the party’s presidential candidate are pinning their homes on a “contested convention” where no clear winner emerges in the first round of voting by delegates at their national conference in July. In any subsequent rounds of voting at the conference, Trump’s delegates would be free to vote for someone else. 
 
 
 
 The tit-for-tat continued on Monday, with Cruz declaring Trump’s campaign part of the “Washington cartel” despite the frontrunner framing himself as anti-establishment. 
 
 
 
 “The entire Trump campaign is run by Washington lobbyists, it’s the Washington cartel. Donald Trump is the system,” Cruz said. 
 
 Trump then lashed out on Twitter against John Kasich saying that people should still back him in Indiana – even though he is not campaigning there as part of his alliance with Cruz. 
 
 
 
 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Kasich just announced that he wants the people of Indiana to vote for him. Typical politician - can't make a deal work. 
 
 However, Kasich’s adviser John Weaver noted that the plan wasn’t to endorse each other in those states, but instead focus their campaigning. 
 
 John Weaver (@JWGOP) We're not telling voters who to vote for in IN, only where we are going to spend resources to ultimately defeat Hillary. They get it. 
 
 Trump railed against a “totally rigged” nomination system where two candidates with “no path” to victory could seek to deny him the nomination. 
 
 “I have brought millions of voters into the Republican primary system and have received many millions of votes more than Cruz or Kasich. Additionally, I am far ahead of both candidates with delegates and would be receiving in excess of 60% of the vote except for the fact that there were so many candidates running against me. 
 
 
 
 “Because of me, everyone now sees that the Republican primary system is totally rigged.” 
 
 
 
 Ted Cruz, speaking in Borden, Indiana, made no apology for lining up with Kasich to stymie their mutual rival. 
 
 “I don’t doubt that Donald Trump will scream and yell and curse and insult and probably cry and whine some as well,” Cruz said. 
 
 Talking Points Memo reported the Texas senator as adding: “Donald is a sore loser. When he lost five states in a row in landslide elections, Donald threw a tantrum … 
 
 “His response is to attack the voters. His response is to attack the people. Yes, I get that the Trump campaign is scared. They’re scared of Indiana. If Donald wasn’t scared, he’d show up in Indiana and have a debate. But he would much rather hide in Trump Tower.” 
 
 On Tuesday a five-state marathon known as the “Acela primary” will take place in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and Delaware. Trump and the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, are expected to win the lion’s share of the delegates up for grabs. 
 
 On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders’s campaign chief vowed the candidate would stay in the Democratic race until the summer convention, even as Clinton looks to lock down her commanding position in Tuesday’s contests. 
 
 Clinton has the chance of a clean sweep or at least multiple victories that would probably foreclose Sanders’s already narrow path to the nomination. But the Vermont senator’s campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said the millions of dollars flowing to Sanders and the boisterous rallies showed his “supporters will stand with us all the way to the end”. 
 
 Both Democrats spent Monday campaigning on the east coast. Clinton looked beyond her rivalry with Sanders and went after Trump as a man out of touch on wages, climate change, national security and the lives of everyday people. 
 
 “Come out of those towers named after yourself and actually talk and listen to people,” Clinton told a Delaware crowd, as if talking to him. “Don’t just fly that big jet in and land it and go make a big speech and insult everybody you can think of and then go back in on that big jet and go back to your country club house in Florida or your penthouse in New York.” She was addressing more than 900 people in a Wilmington theatre. 
 
 At a Hartford rally with more than 1,800 people, Sanders drew distinctions with Clinton on the minimum wage, his call for a carbon tax to address climate change, fracking and more. 
 
 “We cannot afford to poison our water,” he said. “Secretary Clinton does not agree. In fact, as secretary of state she pushed fracking on countries all over the world.” Sanders said he would phase out fracking as president. 
 
 With the Associated Press 

 An uneasy alliance between Ted Cruz Ted CruzGOP charges ahead with ObamaCare repeal GOP hasn’t reached out to centrist Dem senators Left threatens Trump-friendly senators with primary challenges MORE and John Kasich meant to block Donald Trump Donald TrumpTrump trade policy pulls away from WTO CNN features clock counting how long Trump goes without a Twitter attack Zinke sworn in as Trump's Interior secretary MORE’s path to the GOP presidential nomination got off to a rough start on Monday. 
 
 After Trump’s two final rivals announced a deal intended to better Cruz’s chance of winning Indiana’s primary, Kasich suggested during a campaign stop in Philadelphia that his supporters in Indiana should vote for him regardless. 
 
 “I’ve never told them not to vote for me,” Kasich said at a diner in Philadelphia. “They ought to vote for me.” 
 
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 Trump, for his part, seized on the pact as obvious collusion, using it to buttress one of the central claims of his campaign: that he and his supporters are the targets of establishment GOP forces conspiring against them. 
 
 “So they colluded, and, actually, I was happy because it shows how weak they are; it shows how pathetic they are,” the front-running candidate said at a rally in Rhode Island on Monday. 
 
 “If you collude in business, or if you collude in the stock market, they put you in jail. But in politics, because it’s a rigged system, because it’s a corrupt enterprise, in politics you’re allowed to collude,” he added. 
 
 The Cruz-Kasich plan won poor reviews from Republican insiders, who expressed considerable skepticism it would work. Several drew attention to the marked ideological and stylistic differences between the Texas senator and the Ohio governor. 
 
 “It remains to be seen how effective this is going to be,” said GOP strategist Dan Judy. “Can the average Kasich supporter stomach voting for Cruz? Can the average Cruz supporter stomach voting for Kasich? We just don’t know.” 
 
 The firm Judy works for, North Star Opinion Research, was affiliated with the now-defunct presidential campaign of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio Marco RubioOvernight Healthcare: House panel plans to mark up ObamaCare repeal bill next week Rubio: Lack of GOP consensus on healthcare is not a 'weakness' Overnight Finance: Trump budget faces GOP resistance | House panel blocks Dem effort on Trump's business ties | Corporate giants at odds over border tax MORE (R). 
 
 Trump is enjoying another strong spell in his campaign. He won his native New York by a thumping margin last week, taking at least 89 of the 95 delegates up for grabs. The billionaire is also expected to sweep across the five states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions that are voting Tuesday: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. 
 
 Cruz and Kasich hope to slow his progress after Tuesday. The idea is for Cruz to stop Trump in Indiana. In exchange, Cruz is agreeing to not campaign in New Mexico and Oregon, where Kasich will focus his efforts. 
 
 Most experts believe that the crux of the Cruz-Kasich deal is Indiana, where Kasich canceled two rallies that had been scheduled for Tuesday. It offers 57 delegates, five more than New Mexico (24) and Oregon (28) combined. 
 
 Importantly, the Hoosier State’s delegates are allotted on a winner-take-most basis: The statewide winner takes 30 delegates immediately, with three more to be claimed by the winner of each one of the state’s nine congressional districts. The primary is set for May 3. 
 
 “The statewide winner is going to get 30 delegates off the bat, so that’s a pretty significant play there,” said University of Georgia political science lecturer Josh Putnam, an expert on the delegate system who runs a blog on the subject, Frontloading HQ. 
 
 In the RealClearPolitics polling average in the state, Trump leads by 6.3 points. But Kasich has been showing respectable strength there. In the three most recent major polls, he has registered between 16 percent and 22 percent support. 
 
 Strategists in Indiana raise serious questions as to how much of that support will now go to Cruz. They note that the areas in which Kasich had been expected to be strong — the suburbs of Indianapolis and other major cities like Evansville — look like inhospitable ground for an evangelical social conservative such as Cruz. 
 
 “I think the Kasich people are now ... left choosing between two people who they see as unappealing,” said Mike Murphy, a GOP operative in the state who worked with Jeb Bush’s now-suspended campaign. “I have talked to a lot of friends today who are stunned and puzzled and kind of adrift: ‘What do we do now?’ ” 
 
 Another Republican strategist in the state who requested anonymity and is not affiliated with any of the three candidates said, “I think it’s a bit of an open question as to whether this deal will take. I’ve got people who say, ‘Yes, I will do anything to stop Trump.’ And others who say, ‘What in the world is the party coming to?’ They view Cruz as unsatisfactory as a nominee but Trump as unfathomable.” 
 
 Still, that strategist emphasized the result in the state is anybody’s guess. Asked whom he would bet on, he replied, “I wouldn’t put a nickel on the outcome.” 
 
 There is also the question of whether the machinations put into motion by Cruz and Kasich could cause disaffection. Dave Ober, a Republican state representative in Indiana, tweeted Sunday night: “This election is garbage. I voted early and then they cut a deal a week before election day.” 
 
 A Cruz win in Indiana could be enough to stymie Trump’s efforts to get to the magic number of 1,237 delegates. 
 
 If Trump does hit that goal, he will be able to claim the presidential nomination on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention, set for Cleveland in July. Experts in the delegate process believe he has a challenging but achievable path to 1,237. The answer will likely only be known after the last day of the Republican primary process, June 7, when California and New Jersey are among the states voting. 
 
 Meanwhile, the national party is doing its best to stay out of the flap over the Cruz-Kasich accord. 
 
 “The role of the RNC is to be a fair and transparent arbiter of the process,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Lindsay Walters in an email to The Hill. “Each campaign has to employ the strategy they feel is best for their candidate.”
– That was fast: The deal Ted Cruz and John Kasich forged on Sunday to stop Donald Trump winning already looks shaky, with confusion over whether Kasich's supporters should vote for him or not next week. Trump, meanwhile, is poised to win all five Eastern states—Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Connecticut—voting in Tuesday's primaries. A roundup of coverage: Kasich appeared to undermine the deal on Monday when he told reporters that Indiana supporters should still vote for him, reports the Washington Post. "I've never told 'em not to vote for me," Kasich said. "They ought to vote for me. But I'm not over there campaigning and spending resources." Hours earlier, Kasich's Indiana campaign co-chair had said his supporters should vote for Cruz to keep Trump from winning the state on May 3. Republican insiders are very skeptical about whether the deal will actually work, the Hill reports. Some believe Kasich supporters are unlikely to embrace Cruz. The Ohio governor's supporters are now "left choosing between two people who they see as unappealing," GOP operative Mike Murphy says. On the campaign trail Monday, Trump slammed the "collusion" as evidence of how "weak" and "pathetic" his rivals are, reports the Guardian. "If you collude in business, or if you collude in the stock market, they put you in jail," he said. "But in politics, because it's a rigged system, because it's a corrupt enterprise, in politics you're allowed to collude." RedState explains the delegate allocation process in the five states voting Tuesday and predicts a near-total sweep for Trump, though a weak spot could be Pennsylvania, which is the only state where polls put Cruz instead of Kasich second. FiveThirtyEight also predicts Trump wins in all five states, though its state-by-state analysis finds a few spots where Kasich could sneak wins. It will be interesting to see which version of Trump takes the stage for a victory speech, the New York Times notes. If it's the Trump who slams Cruz as "Lyin' Ted" instead of the more statesmanlike Trump seen after his New York victory, it could signal that a "messy spectacle at the convention" lies ahead, whether he gets 1,237 delegates or not. (Trump's latest target is Kasich's "disgusting" eating habits.)