With all votes counted in the first congressional district, Mr Ryan had 84.1% of the vote with his rival Paul Nehlen trailing on 15.9%.
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Trump spoke highly of Nehlen last week before endorsing Ryan days later.
“I am humbled and honored that Wisconsinites in the 1st Congressional District support my efforts to keep fighting on their behalf”, said a statement Ryan released late Tuesday.
And given the recent fate of a fellow GOP House leadership, Ryan had reason to at least to take the challenge seriously: just two years ago, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fell to a little-known primary challenger in what became one of the biggest House race upsets in recent history.
The outcome was an affirmation of Ryan’s home-state popularity within his own party, amid the turbulence surrounding the GOP presidential nominee and Ryan’s own public differences with Trump. The day before the election, Ryan toured local businesses and never mentioned the race or the fact that he has a primary challenge.
Ryan took over his speaker position after John Boehner retired in 2015.
“I don’t think there’s a high likelihood (of the TPP’s passage) right now because. we don’t have the votes to pass it because people like me have problems with some significant provisions of it that we believe need to get fixed”, he said. Trump also said he wasn’t ready to endorse Ryan, who had joined in that criticism. Nehlen, though, has cast the speaker as supportive of trade deals see as harmful to USA jobs by Trump. “We got the votes we were hoping and expecting to get all along”. Trump withheld an endorsement from Ryan until last week. They don’t know him personally, but say they’re familiar with him after 40 years and that he went to high school with their daughters. “I’m running for Congress because we need more people with the experience and the skills necessary to represent northeast Wisconsin”.
Nehlen relished the attention from Trump and conservative media outlets. He criticised Ryan over trade, branding him a “soulless globalist” and promising to “repatriate” jobs to America. Bob Becker called it “a no-brainer”. “So you know I’m just going to rise above this stuff, and I’m not going to get involved in some sort of petty back and forth, I see no goal in doing that”.
In this July 12, 2016 file photo, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington.
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Nehlen said in a message on Twitter after the crushing defeat that his candidacy “damaged Paul Ryan’s ability to continue growing government”. But they also could be read as an implicit critique of Trump, whose tone and approach to politics are far more slashing and confrontational than Ryan’s.
