Fox News projects that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will defeat Donald Trump in Wisconsin’s Republican presidential primary.
According to Fox News exit polls and early vote returns, Cruz will win the state. The victory helps Cruz slow Trump’s momentum after a rough week on the campaign trail for the New York businessman.
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Bernie Sanders was projected to defeat Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary, while Ted Cruz enjoyed a solid lead over Donald Trump on the Republican side, though it was too early to call that race.
With polls closed in the state, Fox News exit polling shows Sanders will win the Democratic contest, making it his sixth victory of the last seven primaries and caucuses – and giving him significant momentum in advance of the New York primary in two weeks.
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Early returns show Sanders with 56 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent in the state.
The victory helps fuel Sanders’ argument that the Democratic primary is far from over, even as front-runner Clinton tries to turn her attention to the general election.
On the Republican side, early returns show Texas Sen. Cruz with 50 percent to Trump’s 32 percent, a lead also reflected in exit polls. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is trailing far behind.
Exit polls also showed Cruz enjoying his highest support of the campaign among evangelical Christians.
Exit polls in the Democratic race show Sanders won in part with the help of independent voters, who broke big for the Vermont senator.
Both Cruz and Sanders have led in recent polling in the state. While wins in Wisconsin wouldn’t necessarily lessen the odds against either winning their party’s nomination, the loss by Clinton – and a possible loss by Trump — would keep an aura of uncertainty hanging over both races.
Pressure would be immense on both front-runners to bounce back with wins in the April 19 New York primary, where Trump seems better positioned right now than Clinton, according to recent polls.
For Trump in particular, though, every loss – however slim – increases the chances he’ll fall short of the necessary 1,237 delegates to clinch the nomination and face a contested convention in July.
Cruz, enjoying the support of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, campaigned harder than anybody in the Midwestern state. Buoyed by conservative talk show hosts and others opposed to a Trump bid, the Texas senator led in most GOP polls leading up to Tuesday’s primary.
“We have now beaten Donald Trump in 11 states across the country. I am very hopeful after Wisconsin votes … that that will be 12 states,” Cruz told Fox News, in advance of the primary.
For Trump, the long lead-up to Wisconsin’s contest has included one of the worst stretches of his candidacy. He was embroiled in a spat involving Cruz’s wife, which he now says he regrets, was sidetracked by his campaign manager’s legal problems after an altercation with a female reporter, and stumbled awkwardly in comments about abortion.
Still, Trump made a spirited final push in the state and predicted a “really, really big victory.”
“If we do well here, it’s over,” he said. “If we don’t win here, it’s not over.”
Complicating the primary landscape for both Cruz and Trump is the continuing candidacy of Kasich. The Ohio governor’s only victory has come in his home state, but he’s still picking up delegates that would otherwise help Trump inch closer to the nomination or help Cruz catch up.
Trump has joined Cruz in calling for Kasich to end his campaign. But Kasich cast Trump’s focus on him as a sign that he’s best positioned to win over the businessman’s supporters.
“The rule is 1,237 — if you don’t get the 1,237 you can’t be picked,” Kasich said Monday. “What’s wrong with that process? What are we supposed to say? ‘Well, you almost got there.’ Almost got there is not what the rules say.”
For Republicans, 42 delegates are at stake Tuesday. If Cruz wins all of Wisconsin’s 42 delegates, Trump would need to win 57 percent of those remaining to clinch the GOP nomination before the July convention. So far, Trump has won 48 percent of the delegates awarded.
Going into Tuesday’s primary, Trump had 737; Cruz had 475; and Kasich had 143.
For Democrats, 86 delegates were on the line Tuesday in Wisconsin. So far, Clinton has 1,243 delegates to Sanders’ 980 based on primaries and caucuses. When including superdelegates, the party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton holds a much wider lead — 1,712 to Sanders’ 1,011. It takes 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.
On the eve of voting in Wisconsin, Clinton’s campaign manager argued that Sanders’ only path to victory “relies on overturning the will of the voters.” In a memo to supporters, Robby Mook wrote that Sanders’ strategy now is “a combination of trying to flip pledged delegates at state and county conventions, while also convincing superdelegates that he deserves their support.”
Sanders would need to win 67 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates to catch up to Clinton. So far, he’s winning 37 percent.
Even with Sanders’ win in Wisconsin, he might not gain much ground. Because Democrats award delegates proportionally, a narrow victory by either candidate on Tuesday would mean that both Sanders and Clinton would get a similar number of delegates.
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