April 27--REPORTING FROM WEST CHESTER, Pa. -- Donald Trump stacked up five more primary wins Tuesday, sweeping the East Coast in a decisive showing that moved him significantly closer to capturing the Republican presidential nomination and avoiding a bruising fight at the party's convention this summer.
Trump's victories -- in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island -- were never in doubt, as he opened a sizable lead the moment polls closed. The only question was how big the margin of victory would be, thus determining his share of the 172 delegates at stake.
Early returns suggested Trump would take the overwhelming majority, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich fighting for a small share.
Coming off a landslide showing last week on his home turf in New York, the Manhattan business mogul had been expected to do well in the heavily urbanized Atlantic corridor.
Even so, and "even if you don't like Donald Trump, it's hard to deny the magnitude of his victories," said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent campaign analyst.
Trump's dominating performance was important from both practical and psychological standpoints, pushing Trump closer to the 1,237 delegates needed for a first-ballot victory at the July convention and also shaping perceptions of the race to his great advantage.
In exit poll interviews, just about 7 in 10 Republican voters in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut suggested the candidate who gets the most votes -- which has been Trump -- deserves to win the nomination, even if he falls short in the delegate count.
"There's kind of a growing sense of inevitability," said Rothenberg, publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report. "The trajectory now suggests he will be very close to 1,237 by the end of business on June 7, and probably close enough to sweep up the crumbs he needs to be the nominee."
California, with 172 delegates -- more than any state -- will be important in determining whether Trump clinches the nomination, or falls just short.
He began the day with 845 pledged delegates. Cruz had 559 and Kasich 148.
But the most crucial fight may come in Indiana, which votes next Tuesday.
With no chance of gaining enough delegates to win outright, the only hope for Cruz, Kasich and the forces aligned against Trump is to stall him short of winning of a first-ballot victory, throwing the Cleveland convention open to alternatives. Trump's two rivals forged a tenuous non-compete agreement this week as part of a last-ditch strategy to stop the front-runner.
Indiana, where Cruz is strongly competitive, may be their last realistic chance.
Brian Howey, a longtime student of politics in the state, rated the contest a toss-up with a slight lean toward Trump, who enjoys a small lead in polls.
"It's the classic ground game and political skills versus national figure and air war," said Howey, comparing the respective strengths of Cruz and Trump.
The winner will take most of Indiana's 57 delegates.
Even as the Trump wave built Tuesday night, opponents insisted they were undeterred.
"The path to 1,237 remains narrow," Rory Cooper, a spokesman for the Never Trump political action committee, said in a written statement, "and he just left the most favorable part of the map for him in the Northeast. Moving west, his ability to keep pace becomes more difficult."
The five states that voted Tuesday included only one pure winner-take-all contest: Delaware, which awards its 16 delegates to the candidate who carries the state. The rest apportioned their delegates through a combination of statewide and congressional district-level results.
Pennsylvania was the day's biggest prize and also the most complicated.
Of the 71 delegates at stake, just 17 will be required to vote for the winner on the first ballot of the convention in Cleveland. The rest, elected by congressional district, can support whomever they choose, though many said ahead they would support the candidate who carried their district.
Trump continued Tuesday to decry the nominating system, which is based on the delegate count in Cleveland rather than the popular vote in contests across the country. "The whole delegate system is a sham," he said on Fox News.
For his part, Cruz always faced a difficult road Tuesday, given his cultural conservatism and religiosity in a region that tends toward neither. For the last several days he has focused on Indiana, where a sizable evangelical population and buttoned-down Midwestern sensibility offer a better political fit.
Speaking even before the polls closed, in Knightstown, Ind., in the gym where portions of the movie "Hoosiers" was filmed, Cruz minimized Trump's success.
"The media is going to say the race is over," Cruz said Tuesday night. But, he went on, "tonight this campaign moves on to more favorable terrain. Can the state of Indiana stop the media's chosen Republican? There is nothing Hoosiers cannot do."
On Sunday night, his campaign announced an alliance with Kasich, in which the governor would essentially cede Indiana in return for Cruz standing down in primaries in Oregon, which votes May 17, and New Mexico on June 7. Kasich made no public remarks Tuesday night.
But the accord was quickly mired in confusion, with Kasich refusing to explicitly steer his Indiana supporters to Cruz and a pro-Cruz political action committee continuing to air anti-Kasich TV ads in the state.
Howey, who publishes the nonpartisan Howey Politics Indiana newsletter, said it was unclear how the arrangement would play in his state.
"Hoosier voters don't like being told what to do, so it's hard to see how it plays out," Howey said. "I suspect the question will be answered late next Tuesday night. If Cruz pulls out a win, everyone will say it was a brilliant move. It not, people will say it came too late."
Twitter: @markzbarabak
Barabak reported from San Francisco and Bierman from West Chester. Times staff writer Lisa Mascaro in Knightstown contributed to this report.
