Wisconsin Primary Elections: Live Coverage And Results

Cruz may be tonight’s big winner, but the silver lining for Trump is that Cruz’s support appears geographically concentrated in the state’s conservative, well-educated suburbs like Waukesha and Ozaukee counties. That means Trump still has a chance to rack up a significant delegate share tonight, even while losing the state. Trump is posting early leads in Kenosha County (Paul Ryan’s district along the Illinois border), Bayfield County (a small working-class county on Lake Superior) and Sauk County (northwest of Madison). These showings bode well for Trump’s chances of winning a district or two and preventing a Cruz delegate sweep.

With Kasich performing poorly in exit polls and in votes reported so far, I’ll repeat the question I asked earlier. Is his poor performance a sign that Republicans are voting tactically in order to stop Trump — or that Kasich’s campaign is on the rocks, making it even easier for Trump to accumulate delegates in the Northeast? I lean toward the former interpretation, given what we’ve seen from Republican voters in other states, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Kasich has won only his home state of Ohio and has not been much of a factor in most other places.

I have to admit that I sometimes don’t get what voters are thinking. On the Republican side, 38 percent of voters think that Trump has the best chance to defeat Clinton. Granted, general election polls aren’t all that predictive at this point, but Trump is getting crushed in every poll.