Wisconsin Primary Elections: Live Coverage And Results

On most primary nights, Cruz has had to wait long into the evening to get his first victory. Tonight, he clearly didn’t, but it’s more than that. His margin over Trump is likely to fall as more votes come in from the northern and western parts of the state. But if you’re looking for momentum (whatever that exactly means), Cruz is getting the results reported in the right order. On the East Coast (where primaries are taking place later this month) viewers are seeing big Cruz margins march across their screens.

An American Research Group poll conducted last Friday through Sunday showed Trump leading Cruz by 10 points in Wisconsin. Every other poll after February showed either Cruz ahead or Trump up by two points. With Cruz the projected winner, and possibly headed for a double-digit win, that’s looking like another big miss by ARG. The firm also showed Clinton ahead of Sanders by a point, and he may win by double digits, too. Even the best pollsters have the occasional miss — and sometimes a whole bunch of them do at the same time — but ARG has had more than its share of misses so far in this election. It showed Cruz ahead in Texas by a point; he won by 17. It showed Trump losing by two points to Kasich in Michigan; he won by 12 points. And it showed Kasich finishing ahead of Cruz in South Carolina; Cruz beat there by 15 points. Results like these in past races helped earn ARG a C- in the last version of our pollster ratings.

So far, Sanders seems to be beating expectations in Wisconsin and has the potential to rack up a double-digit margin of victory tonight. He’s now leading 54 percent to 46 percent, but over half of Milwaukee County (where most of the state’s African-American voters live) and Ozaukee County (high-income suburbs north of Milwaukee) are reporting, compared to less than a quarter of the rest of the state. So Sanders’s lead should grow as the night goes on.