A total of 172 delegates are at stake in Tuesday’s primaries in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Maryland. That is as many as in California, and many more delegates than were up for grabs in recent closely-watched contests in Wisconsin and New York. Donald Trump is expected to win most of them.

Chad Sweet, chairman of the Cruz campaign, admitted as much in an on-the-record conference call with his national security team Sunday afternoon. “We recognize it’s going to be a tough stretch for us on Tuesday,” Sweet said. “We knew all along … that this particular stretch of states in the Northeast was going to be probably the low point of the campaign in terms of our ability to win delegates.”