Harsh GOP words for Trump
The candidate misses a Republican dinner in Milwaukee, but the party faithful don’t seem to miss him.
MILWAUKEE — If Donald Trump loses Wisconsin’s GOP presidential primary Tuesday, the Republican dinner here could help explain why.
Local party loyalists showed little love and sometimes outright disdain for the New York billionaire Friday night as they chowed down on fried f ish in the American Serb Hall, where two bars f lank the banquet room and old- timers played cards in a bowling alley next door.
It didn’t help that while his rival GOP candidates, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, attended the dinner, Trump sent Sarah Palin to speak on his behalf. The crowd giggled during her disjointed speech.
Mary Jo Thompson, 61, held two glasses of white Zinfandel because, she said, the prospect of Trump winning the nomination makes her so anxious.
“His behavior is abominable — his body language, just the way he carries himself and the faces that he makes,” said Thompson, a nurse who has voted Republican her entire life.
Although Trump is the Republican front- runner, he has struggled to connect with the party faithful here. He trails Cruz in polls.
“I don’t see Donald Trump going into any Republican venue and really seeking out any Republi- cans,” said David Karst, chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party. “If he’s serious, he needs to reach out and start building a coalition.”
Many of the hundreds at the dinner view Trump as immature, insufficiently conservative or out of touch with their concerns. The distance between Trump and local Republicans is most evident when it comes to Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s governor.
Walker, who brief ly ran for president before dropping out last fall, has an 80% approval rating among Republicans who plan to vote in Tuesday’s primary, according to a recent Marquette Law School poll.
Trump is supported by only 27% of that group, and he further damaged himself by criticizing Walker in radio interviews last week.
“It was a disaster,” said Alberta Darling, a Wisconsin state senator who is supporting Cruz. “Most people know our state is a lot better off now than it was.”
Loyalty to Walker, who attended Friday’s dinner and endorsed Cruz earlier in the week, has been firm after Republicans rallied around the governor to protect him from an unsuccessful recall effort in 2012.
“We’ve been through blood on this stuff,” Darling said.
John Schaff, 53, a contractor from Milwaukee, said he was on the fence about Trump until last week.
Trump’s criticism of the governor and Walker’s endorsement of Cruz convinced him that the Texas senator was the right choice in the primary.
“We’re in [ Walker’s] corner,” Schaff said. “We’re backing him 100%.”
For others, their dislike for Trump goes back further.
“I saw that f irst debate, and that killed it for me,” said Paula Potkonjak, 53, who works in a fragrance store and lives in Milwaukee. “There was no substance to the man. And then he attacks Megyn Kelly,” the Fox News anchor and debate moderator.
Dragomir Marinkovich, 52, of Hales Corner said he’d been a Cruz supporter since the beginning and viewed him as the only “true conservative” of the remaining candidates.
Trump, he said, is “a Democrat in Republican clothing.” In Wisconsin, “there’s a strong conservative base. He can’t fake it here.”