Wisconsin Primary Elections: Live Coverage And Results

Gov. Walker left the race early, and unlike the two other contenders who were assumed to be in the top three (Rubio and Bush), he didn’t even stick around for the early primaries. Would he have prevailed in a field that stayed wide and muddled until well after New Hampshire? When Walker joined the race in early 2015, I expressed doubts that he would be able to effectively position himself as the anti-Obama, citing the importance of drawing such a contrast after a two-term presidency. Like Obama, Walker is a young Midwesterner without a lot national experience. And Walker’s rise to political prominence has happened at the same time as Obama’s – a period of intense polarization and what I’ve called an “age of mandate politics.” Both entered office with solid legislative majorities behind them, and acted on their agendas, to strong backlash. Earlier this week I wrote about electability and noted that governors who win the presidency tend to be a bit ideologically ambiguous – Bill Clinton’s “third way” politics, George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” It seems unlikely that Walker would have been able to pull this off. (Check out this piece by Jason McDaniel about Walker’s relative ideological position.) But perhaps 2016 is different (are we over that trope yet? I hope not). The ideological ambiguity lane is occupied by Trump. And with Trump’s unexpected dominance of the race, there seems to have been more focus on being the anti-Trump than being the anti-Obama. It’s not entirely clear to me why Cruz has been the most successful in this anti-Trump role, but part of that might be his solid credentials as a principled conservative. Walker could have filled this role, too, and without some of Cruz’s baggage. This might be a lesson about the importance of individual candidates, as Walker seemed to really fall apart in debates and other off-the-cuff settings. But it also might illustrate the impact of the early focus of the race. If Walker had been able to survive the earlier part of the race, later conditions might have been more favorable for him.

As a sign of Cruz’s potentially expanding base of support, he won 43 percent of the non-evangelical vote tonight in Wisconsin, according to exit polls, beating Trump (37 percent) and Kasich (17 percent).

Sanders is beginning to speak in Laramie, Wyoming, in front of his supporters. Laramie is where a gay 21-year-old university student, Matthew Shepard, was brutally murdered in 1998. Shepard’s death sparked a national conversation about anti-gay hate crimes, and also inspired a play based on interviews, The Laramie Project, which is still performed by students as well as professional groups. More broadly, Sanders’s visit to Laramie ties in with his strong pursuit of the college vote in the Saturday caucus.