Mrs Clinton now has 1,274 delegates to Mr Sanders’ 1,025, based on primary and caucus results alone.
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Sanders, meanwhile, is hoping to pull off his sixth win of the past seven state contests to undercut Hillary Clinton’s claim that she has already amassed a decisive lead in the Democratic delegate derby.
Sanders’s sweeping win in virtually every county in Wisconsin, except Milwaukee, gives him greater incentive to keep competing against Clinton. But he still trails her in the pledged delegate count and has so far been unable to persuade superdelegates- the party officials who can back any candidate – to drop their allegiance to the former secretary of state and back his campaign. When superdelegates are included, Clinton leads by more than 700 delegates.
Trump, however, is warning that the polls are wrong in the state’s open primary – a type of election that can be unpredictable because registered voters can choose to vote for candidates from either side of the political aisle. His campaign issued a venomous statement Tuesday saying that super PACs, Republican establishment figures, talk-radio hosts and a bunch of other bad people ganged up on him to boost Ted Cruz in Wisconsin. Cruz and Kasich are hoping for a contested convention as they are mathematically unable to win an outright majority before then. By winning Wisconsin, Cruz is making it more likely the race for the Republican nomination will go all the way to a contested convention this summer.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won Wisconsin’s Republican primary Tuesday, dealing a setback to national front-runner Donald Trump in a state where the brash billionaire had received a cold reception.
Trump accused Cruz, a senator from Texas, of being behind the provocation and responded by retweeting a photo montage showing an image of Melania next to an unflattering picture of Ted Cruz’s wife Heidi, along with the phrase: “The images are worth a thousand words”. For a Trump-led GOP ticket, only 61 percent said they would vote for the Republican nominee.
Party leaders are concerned that Mr Trump would be a weak candidate in the general election and could harm other Republicans lawmakers on the ballot.
Trump made a spirited last-minute push in Wisconsin and predicted a “really, really big victory”.
Anti-Trump Republicans, who have poured millions of dollars into attack ads around the country, are hopeful that a loss in Wisconsin would signal a break in the momentum that has kept Trump steadily rising in the polls. Given the stumbles of Donald Trump over the last couple of weeks, that sounds like good news for Cruz – but we’ll see. It takes 2,383 to win. About half of Cruz supporters said they would back Trump and 40 percent of Trump supporters said they would back Cruz. So far, he’s winning 37 percent.
More than half say Sanders inspires them more about the future of the country, while 4 in 10 say Clinton does.
Even if Sanders wins in Wisconsin, he’s unlikely to gain much ground. His campaign manager issued a memo Tuesday gleefully proclaiming that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump “both effectively admitted they will not reach the GOP Convention with enough bound delegates to be the nominee”. Because Democrats award delegates proportionally, a narrow victory by either candidate would mean that both Sanders and Clinton would get a similar number of delegates.
Family flap: “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson endorsed Cruz while his son and co-star Willie Robertson endorsed Trump.
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“Vote for the first candidate since Reagan who is growing the Commonsense Conservative movement”, she implored her followers. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former President Clinton, is the author of 17 books, including his latest, “Power Grab: Obama’s Dangerous Plan for a One Party Nation” and “Here Come the Black Helicopters”.
