Wisconsin Presidential Primary: Donald Trump Lost Big in Crucial Contest

Who knew Wisconsin would become a battleground state in the 2016 presidential primaries? Today, Republican voters played a significant role in what comes next for frontrunner Donald Trump. And Democratic voters gave fresh momentum to Bernie Sanders in his challenge to frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Early voter turnout here was strong, much as it has been for other states historically non-factors in past presidential primaries. This could be the highest turnout since the 1980 campaign.

• Check LIVE Wisconsin primary election results

• Democratic Results

• Republican Results

The polls in the Badger state were not kind to Trump, the billionaire businessman viewed by many Wisconsin voters as unkind himself. Many predicted Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who's backed by Gov. Scott Walker, would walk away with Wisconsin.

And he did.

Denying Trump most of the 42 GOP delegates will virtually assure a convention fight in Cleveland this summer for the nomination.

“It’s clear that Ted Cruz is going to win the state. The only question is, what is his margin?” Decision Desk HQ analyst Jeff Blehar told Patch before the primary votes were cast.

Cruz needed a commanding victory here to thwart Trump's push for delegates, which is why so many establishment Republicans who don't necessarily like Cruz supported him.

Cruz led in every major state poll except for one, conducted by the American Research Group. In that poll, which has a 5 percent margin of error, Trump had a 10-point lead over Cruz. The RealClearPolitics average of major state polls showed Cruz with a 4.7-point lead over Trump on primary day.

On Monday, Cruz was in Madison, a liberal area not inclined to go for Cruz's strict conservatism, to rally his troops and underline the contrast between himself and Trump.

"Let’s show the country that this race is not about yelling and screaming and insults," he said.

“I think (Cruz) is going to lose at least one district, and I think it may be that Madison one," Blehar said.

In Blehar's analysis, the Minnesota and Iowa border counties were most likely to go Trump's way. Those areas hold more blue-collar, less-affluent voters.

Over the weekend, a white supremacist group made robocalls to Wisconsin voters urging them to support Trump. William Johnson, who leads the American Freedom Party, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he paid $6,000 for the robocalls. A "sweet, grandmotherly" voice delivered the pro-Trump and pro-white nationalist message.

The Trump campaign condemned the call.

Trump was in La Crosse campaigning on Monday. In the evening, he was in Milwaukee. Two blocks away, an actual circus, with real elephants, not political ones, was under way.

"If we do well here, folks, it's over," Trump told supporters, which is what many of his foes feared. "This could be the real beginning. If it's not, I think we get there anyway, and I'm pretty sure we get there anyway."

Recent days have not been good for the Trump campaign. His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was arrested and charged with battery in Florida for grabbing a reporter. In a town hall with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Trump said that women who undergo abortions should face "some form of punishment."

The abortion question was asked by Tanya Niemi, 19, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Trump later defended his response in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“That was not a wrong answer,” Trump said Monday night while in Wisconsin. “There were other people that wrote me letters by the hundreds saying that was a great answer to that question the way it was raised.”

A 15-year-old Wisconsin girl also was pepper sprayed after she punched a man who she said groped her during a March 29 rally for Trump. Investigators, however, claim they found no evidence to back up the girl's accusations, and authorities are considering charging her with disorderly conduct in the incident.

Law enforcement still hasn't caught up with the unknown man who pepper sprayed the teen, but he could face battery charges.

Speaking in Superior, Trump said he'd been told to act "more presidential." But that would be "boring" and people wouldn't come to see him, he said.

"If I'm nice, I'll be presidential, but then I'm gonna lose," he said.

While in Racine, Trump told voters he was the only candidate in either party who could protect the middle class: “NAFTA took the guts out of this country, out of Wisconsin. What the TPP will do to Wisconsin will be unbelievably bad. It will be impossible to compete, and it will clean out our jobs so they’re gone to other countries.”

The Racine County Eye noticed that Trump convinced one undecided Racine voter to side with him.

David Slama and Sherria Wine were undecided, and they said they attended in part to see how others react to Trump ...

“I want to hear solutions. I’m a businessman, and I want to hear solutions,” Slama said. “I want to hear what Trump will do for us, not what other people aren’t doing for us.”

On his way out of Memorial Hall, Slama said Trump did a good job of convincing him ...

“I probably would vote for him now,” Slama stated. “I like that his approach is as a businessman and not as politician. I feel like he’s more of a leader and not a politician.”

Also on Patch:

• Police Hunt for Man Who Pepper Sprayed Teen at Wisconsin Trump Rally: A 15-year-old Wisconsin girl was doused with the chemical spray after she punched a man she claims groped her at the rally.

• Protest at CNN Over Network's Huge Coverage of Trump: Hundreds, mainly Bernie Sanders supporters, lined up on Sunset Boulevard outside CNN's bureau, over extensive coverage of Donald Trump.

• Trump Thumps Ford Over $1.6B Assembly Plant in Mexico: Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders have both taken swipes at Ford on the presidential campaign trail.

On the Democratic side, interest in Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign nationally has been surging with a string of recent caucus victories in the western states. Hillary Clinton, all but anointed as the nominee early in the primary season, now faces a tit-for-tat slugfest with Sanders.

The Sanders campaign saw real opportunity in Wisconsin, which has 86 delegates at stake, and seized the moment with its victory. The delegates are awarded proportionally based on congressional district results.

Sanders took Clinton down to the wire in neighboring Illinois, but Clinton managed to eke out a narrow win on March 15. A week earlier, Sanders pulled off an upset victory in Michigan.

The African-American urban vote proved critical for Sanders in both states. Analysts were watching Milwaukee to see if the same would happen here. The entire state fell for Sanders, however, except for Milwaukee County.

One region was widely considered a lead-pipe cinch for Sanders: Madison.

“Sanders is going to just blow out Madison. It’s going to be Biblical. The city was designed for him," Blehar told Patch.

Democratic polls showed a hotly contested race between Sanders and Clinton. Three out of the seven latest major state polls are within the margin of error, and the RealClearPolitics average has Sanders ahead by just 2.6 points.

Even with the Sanders win, his delegate haul doesn't appreciably change the delegate math heading toward the Democratic convention. Craig Gilbert, who writes The Wisconsin Voter blog for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, explains why:

... even a 10-point victory by Sanders would probably “net” him no more than three statewide delegates and five district-level delegates, for a net gain of eight (47 out of 86 pledged delegates). It could easily be less than that, too. A very impressive 14-point statewide victory might net him 10 (48 out of 86).

And that doesn’t include the state’s 10 unbound super-delegates, some of which are uncommitted right now, and some of which are pro-Clinton.

A victory, however, adds to the Sanders momentum and bolsters his case for remaining in the race down to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia this summer.

With reporting from Alison Bauter. Contributing: Patch reporters Marc Torrence and Joe Vince

A selection of tweets and photos as Wisconsin voters advocate for their candidates in the April 5, 2016 presidential primary: