This article was originally published at FiveThirtyEight on April 26, 2016. The Republican primary calendar could hardly have worked out better for Donald Trump. There is plenty of evidence that he’s had the most to lose from a field that’s winnowed as the presidential primaries have progressed. But in the home stretch, Trump’s bid for 1,237 delegates may be rescued by geographic terrain that’s improving for him and deteriorating for his strongest rival, Ted Cruz — even as Cruz and John Kasich begin to collude. Thus far, the two best predictors of GOP voter preferences have been white socioeconomic status and an area’s partisanship. Trump has performed best among non-Hispanic whites with low socioeconomic status, especially in blue areas. Meanwhile, Cruz has fared best in more conservative areas, Kasich has run best in blue areas, and both have run slightly better in areas with high white socioeconomic status. To illustrate this phenomenon, let’s divide the counties that have voted into four quadrants.1 First, let’s divide the GOP electorate by white socioeconomic status, based on a composite index we created, 2

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