Bernie Sanders Wins Indiana Democratic Primary

Bernie Sanders won the Indiana Democratic primary Tuesday, but it will likely be symbolic at best.

Sanders and Hillary Clinton were separated only by a few percentage points as the votes were being tallied.

Splitting the delegates down the middle or handing Sanders a couple more would do little to move the needle in the Democratic race, where Clinton has a substantial lead.

VOTE TOTALS (98 percent reporting)

Sanders: 52.5 percent

Clinton: 47.5 percent

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Original story and updates below

Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to be in a tight race in Indiana, where the Vermont senator desperately needs a win to stay competitive in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Indiana's 92 delegates at stake Tuesday were the third-most of any remaining state, behind California and New Jersey.

Polls opened at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. local time. (Parts of Indiana now follow Central time zone.) Indiana voters can find their polling place here.

• Check back with Patch as soon as polls close for live Indiana Democratic primary results.
• FULL COVERAGE: Indiana Primary Results
• SEE ALSO: Indiana Republican Primary Results

See Patch's live updates below:

Update: 6:56 p.m. Eastern:

The second and final wave of polls are about to close. So few precincts from the earlier close have reported that the partial results are pretty much meaningless. For what it's worth, though, frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were ahead in their races.

In the Republican race, Trump was projected the winner within minutes of the polls closing.

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Update: 5:15 p.m. Eastern:

Forecaster FiveThirtyEight's final projections look like bad news for Bernie Sanders. The website gives Hillary Clinton a 90 percent chance of winning Indiana tonight and just 10 percent for Sanders.

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Update: 4:40 p.m. Eastern:

Bernie Sanders' camp still seems confident that he can win Indiana, despite polling that shows the contrary.

"Well, we certainly could win. If people come out, we will certainly win in Indiana, absolutely. But, you know, it all depends on people coming out. People got to go to the polls," his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, told CNN.

He may get his wish. We've seen reports of high voter turnout already, which has usually meant good news for Sanders during this primary season.

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Update: 3:43 p.m. Eastern:

Hillary Clinton, continuing her apparent media tour, is asked about going head-to-head with Donald Trump in a potential general election:

She's not wrong.

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Update: 2:32 p.m. Eastern:

It appears Clinton won't be in Indiana for the primary, or at least isn't right now.

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Update: 2:10 p.m. Eastern:

And now, advertising totals for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton spent in the state campaigning. Oof.

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Update: 1:25 p.m. Eastern:

Hillary Clinton was on MSNBC this morning for a rare interview. The subject: unreleased transcripts of her speeches to big banks and corporations. Check out what she said below:

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Update: 12:38 p.m. Eastern:

Hillary Clinton is checking in with an Indiana icon on primary day: Leslie Knope. Knope is the fictional star, played by Amy Poehler, of NBC's Parks and Recreation, which takes place in (the also fictional) Pawnee, Indiana.

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Update: 11:55 a.m. Eastern:

According to early voting numbers from the IndyStar, it looks like Indiana will see a high voter turnout today, which has been the case across the country this year.

Sanders, in particular, has energized voters and gotten them out to the polls in droves during this primary election season. He was pushing hard for a record turnout on his Twitter account yesterday.

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Original story below:

The Sanders campaign laid off "hundreds" of staffers after losing four of five states last Tuesday. He has said he will remain in the race until the last person casts a vote.

Sanders and his campaign officials have said that the layoffs were an effort to consolidate resources to focus on the remaining states.

"The calendar is coming closer to the end and there are not that many states going forward," Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN. "It's the natural evolution of every campaign."

Sanders himself acknowledged Sunday that he has "a tough road to climb, but not an impossible road to climb."

Clinton, meanwhile, is slowly shifting her attention more and more toward a likely general election showdown between herself and real estate developer Donald Trump.

Trump, after Tuesday's landslide victory, said in a speech that Clinton was playing the "woman card" in her effort to win the nomination.

Clinton countered that same night that "If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in."

Her campaign said they raised $2.4 million off of the "woman card" comments alone.

Both Clinton and Sanders have been campaigning in the state. Clinton visited industrial plants in Northern Indiana while Sanders held rallies at both Purdue University in West Lafayette and at Indiana University in Bloomington. Clinton has a sizable delegate lead and it is virtually impossible for Sanders to catch up with her.

Kip Tew, a former Indiana Democratic Party chairman, told the Indy Star if Clinton wins Indiana then Sanders is "done for sure."

Soon after her win in the Northeast last Tuesday, the Associated Press published a story with the headline, "Clinton could lose every remaining contest and still win the nomination." While Sanders has vowed to stay in the race till the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, his campaign is beginning to layoff hundreds of staffers.

Clinton currently leads Sanders by 327 pledged delegates, according to the AP delegate count. Her lead increases dramatically when counting the superdelegates. She currently has 1,645 delegates to Sanders' 1,318. To win the nomination, a candidate needs 2,383 delegates.

State polling showed a tight race between the two Democratic rivals. Clinton leads in all five of the most recent polls of Indiana voters, according to RealClearPolitics, but three of the five polls are within the margin of error.

A FiveThirtyEight analysis points out that the Indiana primary remains tough to call due to the state's large white demographic. The analysis also notes that Indiana is different from states like Wisconsin, disputing the notion that the race represents an extension of other midwestern contests.

Indiana's history, which includes a large influx of residents from the South, continues to manifest itself today in contrast to surrounding states.

Images via Gage Skidmore, Flickr, used under Creative Commons