After months of working to keep Republicans united in a tumultuous election year, House Speaker Paul Ryan is confronting the intra-party tensions at home in Wisconsin as he prepares to face off with a Donald Trump-supporting candidate in his own primary.
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Ryan’s opponent had been struggling for attention against the popular congressman, who rarely even draws a primary challenger in his southeastern Wisconsin district. Late Tuesday, polls showed Ryan beating Nehlen 84 percent to 16 percent. In June, he produced a misleadingly titled video called “Exposing Paul Ryan’s Drug Problem”, which was about the flow of drugs crossing the USA border and featured Nehlen trudging through the shallows of the Rio Grande carrying a plastic tub labeled “DRUGS”.
Trump backed Ryan last week, 46, under pressure from Republican leaders after earlier expressing reluctance to back his party’s highest-ranking officeholder.
In a year full of United States presidential race firsts, and with incumbent lawmakers under tough scrutiny, a loss by Mr Ryan would have further jolted the rattled USA political establishment as it eyes a White House election pitting Mr Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton. But the man seeking to unseat Speaker Paul Ryan mocks some of Ryan’s proposed budget-balancing spending cuts, and he attacks Ryan’s ties to billionaire donors such as the Koch Brothers.
The primary’s other top race was in northeastern Wisconsin, where GOP Rep. Reid Ribble’s retirement opened a congressional seat that could swing either way. And Trump lost Ryan’s district to Ted Cruz by 19 percentage points in Wisconsin’s presidential primary.
“He won the votes fair and square”, Ryan said. “We got the votes we were hoping and expecting to get all along”.
Voters need to show a show photo ID before casting a ballot Tuesday.
Teske says the slow pace gives election officials a chance to make sure poll workers can master their duties with a bit less stress. Polling place locations can be found online. But people can’t vote in both parties’ primaries. Ryan is expected to easily win that contest too.
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Nehlen – who has campaigned across the state’s 1st Congressional District in a yellow dump truck that reads “Dump Paul Ryan” – has largely focused on Ryan’s tentative support for the Obama administration’s Trans Pacific Partnership, which critics argue will send more heartland manufacturing jobs overseas. Trump relented just three days later, but the burst of publicity was priceless for Nehlen.
