Trump magnanimous in victory speech

UPDATE: Donald Trump relished his victory in Indiana tonight, celebrating with a small group of friends and supporters at Trump Towers in New York. But the brash business mogul, known for his taunts and insults on the campaign trail, projected an air of magnanimity now that his overall victory in the Republican presidential race is all but assured.

Trump called Ted Cruz, who dropped out of the race tonight, “one hell of a competitor” and acknowledged he’s “got an amazing future.” That was the nicest thing Trump has said about his former rival in months. Their battle for the GOP nomination was particularly nasty, even by today’s standards, with both candidates and campaigns resorting to personal attacks that even included the candidate’s wives.

After noting Cruz’s exit from the race, Trump quickly focused on his likely competitor in the November general election.

“We’re going after Hillary Clinton,” he proclaimed.

While Trump celebrated, Clinton suffered another loss to her rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Sanders won his party’s Indiana primary, leading Clinton by a 6-point margin with 80 percent of the precincts reporting. Sanders still remains far behind Clinton in the delegate count, thanks mostly to the so-called “superdelegates” who are not bound by the public vote. And tonight’s victory will not change the delegate count enough to make much of a difference in the overall tally.

But Sanders told the Associated Press that the “Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They're wrong.”

OUR EARLIER REPORT (7:25 p.m.): The Associated Press and other media outlets have declared Donald Trump the winner of the Indiana Republican primary, putting him even closer to clenching the party’s nomination ahead of this summer’s convention.

Based on exit polling, analysts predict Trump will win 45 of Indiana’s 57 delegates and now needs less than 200 to reach the 1,237 threshold that will guarantee him the nomination.

Before the polls closed, Trump boasted a win in Indiana would end the race, but his rivals—Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas—still have a slim chance of netting enough delegates in the upcoming contests to force a contested convention.

With his victory in Indiana, Trump has at least 1,041 delegates. Cruz has 565 and Kasich has 152.

On the Democratic side, the race between front-runner Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was too close to call so soon after the polls closed. But Clinton already has 91 percent of the delegates she needs to win her party’s nomination.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.