Seven public telephone surveys have been conducted in Indiana in the last month, ahead of the Republican presidential primary Tuesday, and they apparently provide few clues as to who will win.
"The polls have been all over the place," Ted Cruz said in a radio interview, according to
Politico. "The media's trying to convince you it's hopeless. I can tell you right now, Indiana is neck-and-neck."
Donald Trump led in six of the polls, while Cruz won the seventh — an Indiana University-Purdue University poll, by 16 points — a difference so large that the pollsters questioned the results.
"At one point, we asked ourselves, 'Did we code these wrong?'" pollster Andy Downs told Politico.
Indiana's long primary process, along with state laws that make conducting some phone surveys more difficult, may have led to the low number of polls. By comparison, Wisconsin had nine polls in the month before its primary, and New York had 17.
The Indiana Purdue universities' poll was not demographically weighted by voters' age or for men and women, according to pollster Downs. He chose not to weigh the polls because the last time there was a competitive GOP presidential primary in the state was "all the way back to 1976."
The lack of demographic weighing might affect the Democratic poll more. Hillary Clinton is ahead in that poll, and Downs said the poll is likely to under-represent young voters, who have appeared to back Bernie Sanders more frequently in other states.
The other six polls show Trump in the lead, but by various amounts. The real estate mogul's biggest lead is by 17 points, in an automated phone poll. Those are illegal in Indiana, unless a live caller begins the call with the voter.
Trump has a 15-point lead in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, according to Politico.
The Los Angeles Times reports Cruz is making a play for the Indiana voters by calling on them to "unify behind a positive, optimistic, forward-looking conservative campaign."
The Cruz camp doesn't appear fazed by the poll results.
"That particular poll has been way off, over and over and over and over," Cruz's vice-presidential running mate Carly Fiorina said on the
Front Row Seat podcast.
Ahead of the Indiana primary, Trump received the endorsement of famed Indiana football coach, the University of Notre Dame's Lou Holtz, according to his tweet:
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