You’re probably tired of the hyperbole about this or that state in the primary process being “must win!!” But Wisconsin does seem to qualify as “must win” on both sides of the aisle, at least for Bernie Sanders for the Democrats and Ted Cruz for the Republicans. Luckily for both of them, the polls indicate that they are on track to win in Tuesday night’s primary in the Badger State, though not by wide margins.
Sanders is in a deep hole delegate-wise (needing 57 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to draw even before the convention), and Wisconsin is one of his better-suited states demographically that he has left, so he needs to make up some ground here. It’s also one of the biggest remaining states that’s tailor-made for him (Oregon, for instance, will probably go for Sanders by a wider margin than Wisconsin in May, but it only has only 61 delegates to Wisconsin’s 86). With potentially large losses looming later in April in Pennsylvania and Maryland, he can’t afford not to have strong night in Wisconsin.
It’s possibly even more important for Ted Cruz, and for the not-Trump movement in general, because Donald Trump is currently on trajectory to barely squeak over the necessary 1,237 delegates to clinch on the first ballot at the convention. Every delegate will count, and Wisconsin’s winner-take-most status gives him a prime opportunity to take a few dozen delegates away from Trump, making it likelier that the GOP descends into the chaos of a contested convention. Cruz’s chances of winning outright are microscopic, but if he’s going to make a play in the convention’s smoke-filled rooms, it has to include keeping Trump from winning Wisconsin.
Polls in Wisconsin close at 8 PM Central (9 PM Eastern); Daily Kos Elections will be live-blogging the night’s events. At article’s end, we’ll also give brief mention to Wyoming’s Democratic caucuses, which will be the weekend’s only event and doesn’t quite merit a preview of its own; their caucuses will be held on Saturday afternoon.
WISCONSIN
Democratic delegates: 19 at large, 10 party leaders and elected officials, 6 in WI-01, 11 in WI-02, 7 in WI-03, 10 in WI-04, 5 in WI-05, 6 in WI-06, 6 in WI-07, 6 in WI-08 (86 pledged total)
Democratic polls: Sanders 49, Clinton 46 (HuffPo Pollster aggregate)
Republican delegates: 18 statewide, 3 in each CD (42 pledged total)
Republican polls: Cruz 41, Trump 38, Kasich 21 (Pollster aggregate)
On paper, Wisconsin looks like a strong state demographically for Sanders. Wisconsin is considerably whiter than the national average (86 percent, in 2010), and has a sizable number of students (centered on the University of Wisconsin in Madison, one of the nation’s largest campuses with more than 40,000 enrolled). More generally, Wisconsin’s Democrats tend to be on the more liberal end of the spectrum within the party; the state has a long-running progressive, good-government tradition (think of the straight line running from Bob La Follette to Russ Feingold) and Milwaukee even elected Socialist mayors frequently in the early 20th century. FiveThirtyEight’s state similarity index says that Wisconsin’s most similar state is Minnesota, which, as you’ll remember, gave Sanders a 60-40 edge in its caucuses.
While Wisconsin isn’t a caucus state, one other consideration in Sanders’ favor is that Wisconsin is an open primary, so independents can participate. Wisconsin is also well-known for its same-day registration, so young people who come down with a last-minute case of the Bern can participate. (Wisconsin does require voter ID to vote, which could trip up some last-minute voters though.)
However, there are a demographic factors that leave Hillary Clinton competitive here. For starters, Wisconsin, despite the large presence of the Univ. of Wisconsin, is a somewhat older-than-average state; it has a median age of 39, and 15.2 percent of its residents are senior citizens. Also, religiosity is one of the key demographic fissures between Clinton and Sanders supporters, and (perhaps surprisingly) Wisconsin is a considerably more religiously-active state than average, with 54 percent of its residents members of churches (for comparison, that figure is closer to 25 or 30 percent in the Pacific Northwest and upper New England).
The recent polls, accordingly, give Sanders only a small advantage, usually with a single-digit lead with a few polls giving Clinton a similarly small lead. Marquette University (who’ve earned their "gold standard" status by coming very close to the results in recent years, especially in the hard-to-poll gubernatorial recall race of 2012), for instance, gave Sanders a four-point lead in its poll last week. Marquette also helpfully breaks down the results into sections of the state: Sanders’ strongest leads are in Madison, and in the rural parts of the state (similar to what we saw in Michigan and Illinois, where he won the rural Dems). Sanders ekes out a small lead in Milwaukee proper, while Clinton leads in Milwaukee’s suburbs and in the more blue-collar Green Bay area.
In terms of how that translates to congressional districts, you would expect Sanders to do best in the Madison-area WI-02 (which has more delegates than any CD, because it’s the most strongly-Democratic in presidential elections), as well as the rural WI-03 and WI-07. (The 3rd should also be stronger for Sanders because it’s centered on two smaller college towns with liberal reputations, Eau Claire and La Crosse.) Clinton will do better in WI-05 in crucial Waukesha County in the suburbs and WI-08 in Green Bay, and the pivotal CD, at least based on that Marquette poll’s breakdown, will be WI-04 in Milwaukee proper, where the question will probably be whether Clinton gets enough African-American turnout to win the city. Wisconsin's Democratic delegates are allocated proportionately at both the state and CD levels, subject to a 15 percent viability threshold, but both candidates should easily clear that bar throughout the state.
On the Republican side, the non-demographic explanations for why Cruz is doing well may be the best ones (for instance, the local talk radio personalities are particularly united against Trump). But there are a few other considerations: for one thing, unlike many states in the South or the Midwest, Wisconsin’s core Republican strength is in the suburbs, rather than the rural areas, where the voters tend to be more affluent and educated. (That’s why the “crucial Waukesha County” joke originated; it has hundreds of thousands of voters, two-thirds of whom are Republicans, and it tends to turn the tide on election night when it reports.) The non-Trump options tend to do better, as you’ve seen in previous states, in more suburban settings.
Another interesting reason for Cruz’s success is that Wisconsin is actually more evangelical than you’d think. Wisconsin is about 15 percent evangelical, which is still low compared to southern states, but noticeably higher than, say, Illinois or Michigan. You’d probably think of Wisconsin as being heavily Lutheran, which is true, but don’t forget that “evangelical” extends to more than just Southern Baptists and Pentecostals. The Lutheran spectrum runs from Garrison Keillor all the way over to Michele Bachmann, and many of the state’s Lutherans are from the more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and especially the ultra-conservative Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
The Marquette poll's regional breakdown has Cruz strongest in Milwaukee proper and also in the Milwaukee suburbs (like, of course, crucial Waukesha County), like WI-04 and WI-05. John Kasich is showing some surprising strength in the Madison area (WI-02), while the only part of the state where Trump leads is the rural “rest of the state,” so if he wins any congressional districts, it’ll probably be WI-03 and WI-07.
The big problem for Trump, though, is the statewide vote. 18 of the 42 delegates are given statewide on a winner-take-all basis, so that would be a big setback if Cruz grabbed all of them. The winner of each CD gets all 3 of its delegates, so possibly we could see Kasich walking away with as many delegates (3 each, with Kasich winning WI-02 and Trump winning WI-07) as Trump if things really go sideways for the Donald. The aggregated polls give Cruz only a 3-point lead, so it’s possible Trump could get over the hump … but, then, he has tended to underperform, not overperform his polls.
Finally, there’s one other must-win race to watch in Wisconsin on Tuesday night: a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Scott Walker-appointed incumbent Rebecca Bradley has only a narrow lead in polls over liberal challenger Jo Ann Kloppenburg. This is an important race in terms of the overall balance of power in Wisconsin, where the Supreme Court could serve as a counterweight against Walker’s various attempted power-grabs.
WYOMING
Democratic delegates: 4 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 8 CD-level (14 pledged total)
Democratic polls: you’re joking, right?
Wyoming is scheduled to have its Democratic caucuses on Saturday. (The Republicans already fought Wyoming in early March, with Cruz winning easily.) Nobody has bothered to poll it, so, on paper, we have little idea what’s likely to happen. If we look to its nearest neighbors, though (Idaho and Utah), and think about the general dynamic that we’ve seen in caucus states in the west, we can probably guess that Sanders will win a sizable margin. Wyoming has a 15 percent viability threshold for its CD-level votes, so theoretically Sanders could win the whole enchilada, if he’s somehow able to top his 80 percent performance in Idaho from several weeks ago. With only 14 total delegates, though, anything that happens here is a drop in the overall bucket.