Wisconsin Becomes a Surprise Battleground State
In the 2016 primary season, Wisconsin will be the 33rd state to vote. By the time the voters head to the polls on April 5, the Iowa caucus will have been more than two months behind us, and things should be pretty much settled, right? Well, apparently not. Seemingly out of nowhere, The Badger State has assumed a mantle of significant importance on the road to the nomination for both Democrats and Republicans.
Back in October Craig Gilbert writing in Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel gave a hint that Wisconsin could be a pivotal state in 2016. Most who read his article at the time chuckled at his home state pride and forgot all about it. Nevertheless, time has proved Craig right, and here we are talking about why Wisconsin matters. In his article, Craig gave his reasons why Wisconsin could become a pivotal state:
It’s like an island. It sits all by itself on the primary calendar. It doesn’t share its election date with any other state — the first stand-alone primary after the opening contests in February. And there are lengthy gaps in the action both before and after Wisconsin votes. More than two dozen states go to the polls in a three-week crush between March 1 and March 22. But that’s followed by a nearly monthlong break in which Wisconsin is the only presidential primary. (A few states hold caucuses in that stretch).
On the Democratic side, it turns out that the Bernie Sanders has managed to string together wins in five of the last six primaries (or caucuses). Bernie’s wins have been in small states such as Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Utah, and Washington State that combined have fewer delegates (129) than does the single state of New York (247). But, these wins have given Sanders a sense of momentum that Hillary Clinton needs to halt with a win in Wisconsin.
For the Republicans, Wisconsin has become an essential state for the anti-Trump establishment coalition to put together a strong support for Ted Cruz. Gov. Scott Walker has endorsed Ted, and a lot of PAC money is being spent by the ‘stop Trump’ groups. The GOP winner takes all formula makes this close to a “must-win” state for Cruz if he is to have any shot of derailing Trump.
There is not a lot of polling that’s been done in Wisconsin, but for what it’s worth the Real Clear Politics average has Hillary up by 2.5 points and Cruz ahead of Trump by a minuscule 0.7 points. Over at FiveThirtyEight, the closeness of the GOP race is mirrored with their polls-only forecast giving Trump a 48% chance of winning to Ted’s 45%. On the Democratic side, Hillary is given a 69% chance of winning compared to Bernie’s 31%. But, the polls have not been doing all that well this election cycle, and there’s a lot of time left before the primary for things to change.
For Hillary, a win in Wisconsin is more about perception than needing delegates. The Democrat Party rules of proportionality in the allocation of delegates means that the only way Bernie could catch Hillary is by winning a mid-size state like Wisconsin by a huge margin and repeating that week after week. That’s highly unlikely to happen. But there is little doubt that a Sanders win in Wisconsin would keep momentum on Bernie’s side, which is always a dangerous thing in politics.
For Donald Trump a loss here would give new life to the stop Trump forces and make his path to gaining enough delegates to assure victory prior to the convention that much harder. Conversely, a Trump victory in Wisconsin would likely force the establishment Republicans to accept Trump’s candidacy and rally behind him as the undisputed front-runner.
In any case, all political eyes will be focused on Wisconsin for the next ten days; something that seemed improbable to everyone but Craig Gilbert a few months ago.