Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Wisconsin Open Thread
Via CNN, as of 7:50 PM PT — with approximately 60 percent of the vote counted — Senator Ted Cruz leads Donald Trump by 50.7 to 32.8 percent.
Published in PoliticsTed Cruz won the Wisconsin Republican primary Tuesday, according to a CNN projection, boosting his effort to blunt Donald Trump and moving the party closer to a historic contested convention. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, won the Democratic primary, CNN projects, inflicting a tough loss on front-runner Hillary Clinton and racking up his sixth win of the past seven state contests.
Please pardon my ignorance, but does the 50% mark make it winner take all, as in other states? Or is it just a win, but not a complete victory?
Complete victory.
I believe 50% means some “statewide” delegates will all go to Cruz, while many delegates will still be apportioned by Congressional District.
Also of note, 538 was saying that they’d need to see Sanders win by >15% to believe anything had shifted in that race. So business as usual on the Dem side- Sanders will keep Clinton busy until California, which is awesome for us.
The RINOcalypse proceeds apace. There is simply no GOPe path to victory at this point.
I don’t even know what this means. I guess I no longer can hear these particular dog-whistles.
Has Trump given a concession speech? I couldn’t find anything online. I did see on Hannity his typically whiney comments about “lyin’ Ted” that his campaign released, but no concession speech.
Apparently, Trump is worse than a loser; he’s a sore loser.
He’s going to /sign it/ with his tiny hands.
Unless Cruz implodes of a self-inflicted wound, there is now no way Trump will get the majority of delegates on the first round of the convention. You can now see why Kasich is staying in: he becomes more powerful by the day. Which way will he roll?
When is the deadline for changing rule 40? Right now Kasich isn’t even eligible past the first ballot is he?
It’s not too late. John “Big Mo” Kasich still has a chance to come in second in Dane County!
The Rules Committee meets right before the convention opens. They can change or add anything they want.
Wisconsin gives 3 delegates to the winner of each congressional district and the rest to the overall winner. Breaking 50% or not doesn’t matter, but it’ll look pretty if that holds.
Looks like Trump has won one, maybe two CDs. Cruz is cleaning up elsewhere.
Trump’s percentage may be a little lower in WI than some other places (we’ll see from the final total), but we’re also seeing consolidation, and leadership helping that consolidation occur. Three cheers for local conservative leaders and media figures, who made the case against Trump so thoroughly over months, and for well-earned credibility from years of fighting for actual conservatism.
Three cheers for Governor Walker, who outdid himself and probably made one of the few endorsements that actually mattered this year. He’s right that people want to be “for” someone, not “against” someone, and that positive enthusiasm helped Cruz immensely.
And, above all, congratulations and very well done to the Cruz campaign, with a special shout-out to Heidi Cruz. Wisconsin was naturally anti-Trump, but hardly naturally pro-Cruz; Trump misread the state and made it worse, while Cruz read it well. Wisconsin needed a different kind of campaign than Cruz has run thus far, and he showed he can do it. That’s encouraging going forward.
Of course Bernie Sanders won.
Oh, and this is very, very, very good news…
Walker’s Supreme Court appointee, Rebecca Bradley, won. In defiance of some really horrendous exit polling. That’s a very big deal — it means the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a 5-2 conservative majority.
The Wisconsin conservative movement has gotten something right somehow. It’s not just Walker, or Charlie Sykes. There’s more behind this all, and someone who wants to make a difference elsewhere (let’s say Virginia) should be studying this.
Jim Geraghty, maybe?
I believe the rules then have to be approved by a majority vote of all the delegates, right?
What happens if the delegates reject the proposal from the Rules Committee? Has that ever happened?
I credit Wisconsin’s populist heritage.
Someone tweeted earlier tonight: Mormons and Wisconsinites are the designated drivers for the nation.
Perfect. Great, great job, Badgers.
As I understand it, and someone please correct me if I’m wrong, Rule 40 can be changed pretty close to the convention, by a committee of delegates that hasn’t even yet been appointed (and presumably won’t be until all the delegates are selected in June).
If we have a contested convention, it’ll be an interesting challenge for the RNC to select speakers for the convention. Usually they turn all of that over to the nominee apparent, but without one, every choice in that regard will be fraught with meaning. Reince Priebus (from Wisconsin) has an interesting job this year, perhaps in the sense of the old Chinese curse.
Looking back at the history of contested conventions, fights over rules are central to nearly all of them, as far as I can tell. Lots of meta-fights surrounding the main fight over who the nominee will be.
I continue to think—even though I concede my position is contradicted by many examples in history—that if the nomination is denied to the candidate with the most delegates, presumably Trump, the sight of awarding the nomination to the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th place finisher will just feel so wrong that an effort will be made to find an outside candidate who can unite as much of the party as possible. The only candidate who fits that bill and has a national profile that would allow him to hit the ground running after the convention is Wisconsin’s own Paul Ryan.
Trump is flailing tonight. I wonder if, once he has a few more delegates from New York, and still has a significant lead over Cruz, he’ll try to create an air of inevitability by naming Chris Christie as his running mate. (After that, does Cruz parry by trying to talk Kasich or Rubio onto a prospective ticket?)
They are reporting 3 delegates for Trump and the rest for Cruz.
Though it’s probably true that someone other than Trump winning the nomination at the convention will make a lot of people angry, it will also be a huge relief to an even larger group of people.
I hope that they treat the contested convention like a runoff election. Basically, the two front runners get to compete one on one to see who has a real majority. I think Cruz would win that contest. If Trump won I guess I’d have to accept it, but I’d have to think about whether I was still going to call myself a Republican.
If it was awarded to the 3rd or 4th place finisher, then I would agree. I think it’s different if it’s the second place finisher. That’s how runoff elections work. For example, Mary Landrieu got the most votes in her last general election, but everyone knew that the second place finisher, Bill Cassidy, was the real winner because Landrieu was not going to get a majority in the runoff. That’s also Cruz won his Senate seat over David Dewhurst. Now, we just have to hope the Trump supporters will be reasonable…
There’s a lot better chance of Trump supporters being reasonable than of certain elements of the GOPe being reasonable.
You’re joking, right?
We have to hope that the non Trump delegates are too honorable to be bribed or intimidated.
I understand they’re speaking metaphorically, but still, that could only come from someone who’s never been to Wisconsin. The amount of drinking in the culture here permanently disqualifies Wisconsin from being anyone’s designated driver, even metaphorically.
Like the statements of many Trump supporters, this one does not hold up in the face of the evidence:
They better not try and jam anyone else in at the convention. The OVERWHELMING majority of voters want Cruz or Trump.
Right? But knock me over with a feather — Rebecca Bradley won in the Supreme Court race. Something tells me that’s the most significant development this year.
Never doubted it for a second.
Assumes facts not in evidence. The overwhelming majority of voters never got a chance to vote for anyone else, because they were all out by the 3rd or 4th state voting.
Oops. Should have read farther. Yes, yes, yes, this is the really big news from yesterday.
It’s amazing how well conservatives can do in this state when Democrats can no longer use John Doe laws to silence them, eh?
And with voter ID requirements.
I’ve told this story over and over, but in every election during the years we lived there, my husband (whose last name was close to theirs in the alphabet) could see that the people who had sold us our house and moved to Florida were continuing to “vote” in Wisconsin. Every year. It got tedious. He tried to explain that since his address was the same as theirs, he was in a good position to state that they no longer were in Wisconsin and that the votes were therefore fraudulent, but the reply came back that they could not be removed from the list until they had failed to show up for four consecutive years, or something, and since they were still “voting,” they remained on the list.