Toeing party line could end
Front-runners face challenges in Wisconsin
Wisconsin has a nearly unbroken modern-day record of voting for party front-runners in its presidential primary.
But that trend could easily be broken Tuesday.
What makes this state a challenge for Hillary Clinton and especially Donald Trump?
The answer may lie in a mix of timing, demographics, political culture and recent history.
Here is a look at some of the “local factors” at play on Tuesday:
GOP solidarity. While Wisconsin Republicans are divided on many issues, their battles with Democrats have forged an aware and engaged GOP electorate that stands solidly behind the party’s two leading lights: Gov. Scott Walker and House Speaker Paul Ryan. That may be working against Trump, who has attacked Walker and been criticized by Ryan. Walker has an 80% approval rating among likely GOP primary voters in Wisconsin; Ryan is viewed positively by 78% of GOP voters, negatively by13%. Those aren’t the markers of a party at war with its leadership.
Wisconsin’s distinctive climate — ultra-engaged, ultra-polarized, further hardened by years of warfare over Walker— has created problems for Trump.
“You’re doing badly in job creation,” Trump said in Racine Saturday, citing the
state’s below-average job growth. But his rhetoric about poor wages and dying Rust Belt industry places him on the “Democratic” side of a long-running and highly politicized debate in Wisconsin over Walker’s economic legacy.
The state’s robust conservative infrastructure has provided Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with a ready-made anti-Trump machine, mobilized in recent weeks when party insiders and talk radio hosts made the tactical decision to coalesce behind the Texas senator, who was in single-digits here last fall.
Where the voters are. This has created a geography problem for Trump, too, polls show. Suburban southeastern Wisconsin is his Achilles heel, thanks to conservative media, high levels of income and education, and a partisan, proWalker tilt. Trump made a note of his weakness in the Milwaukee area during his rally in Racine, blaming it on misinformation from “these crazy talk show hosts.”
There are two reasons why his unpopularity in the region is a problem. It’s the most Republican part of the state. And it turns out to vote at much higher rates in Republican primaries than the rest of the state. When Mitt Romney won the GOP primary in 2012, he carried the Milwaukee TV market by 22 points and lost everywhere else by 3. He won where the votes are. GOP turnout in the big three Republican counties outside Milwaukee — Waukesha, Washingtonand Ozaukee — was 12 percentage points higher than it was in the rest of the state.
Dane County plays a similar role for Democrats. It was Clinton’s worst county in the 2008 Democratic primary: She lost it to Barack Obama by 36 points. Democratic turnout was 12 points higher than it was in the rest of Wisconsin. Clinton rival Bernie Sanders expects to run up the score in Madison on Tuesday. A huge turnout and lopsided Dane County vote would be difficult for Clinton to make up elsewhere.
Trade and immigration.
These two issues, so big for Trump, may not be packing the same punch in Wisconsin as they are in other states. Hard-line anti-immigration voters don’t appear to be a major force in the GOP primary here. Last week’s poll by the Marquette University Law School asked Wisconsin voters to choose among three views: undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in their jobs and eventually apply for citizenship; they should be allowed to stay in their jobs as temporary workers, but not apply for citizenship; or they should have to leave the country.
Just 24% of GOP primary voters in Wisconsin said they should have to leave the country. That’s well below the national figure. In a new Pew poll, 41% of Republicans say undocumented immigrants should have to leave the country.
GOP opposition to trade, while significant, is a little lower in Marquette’s Wisconsin polling than it is in Pew’s national polling. More importantly, Trump isn’t dominating among these voters. Despite his sharp attacks on Cruz over the issue, Trump is leading him by less than 10 points among “anti-trade” Republicans here. Meanwhile, he trails Cruz by 25 points among “pro-trade” Republicans.
The makeup of the electorate. Two fundamentals spell trouble for Clinton in Wisconsin. It is very white (her best voters are African-American). And the primary is open to independents, one of her opponent’s best groups. Sanders is winning independents in the Marquette poll by 20 points.
On the Republican side, the state’s very blue-collar electorate is good in theory for Trump because he does well with white voters who lack a college degree. He has won that group in the vast majority of states so far, including Great Lakes battlegrounds Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. But in Marquette’s poll, he narrowly trails Cruz with these voters.
Fence-mending. The Wisconsin polling is also full of general election warning signs for the front-runners. Trump’s negatives among the electorate look like misprints: 77% of women view him unfavorably, as do 78% of college graduates and 83% of under-30 voters. Trump trails Clinton by 10 points and Sanders by 19 in November matchups.
Meanwhile, Clinton is viewed negatively by 66% of men and 66% of independents. She also fares worse than Sanders in matchups against Republicans.
Both have acquired some negatives in their own party (Trump far more so than Clinton).
On the Democratic side, only three-quarters of Sanders supporters in the primary say they would vote for Clinton in the general election against Donald Trump.
On the Republican side, only 65% of Cruz supporters and 37% of Kasich supporters in the GOP primary say they would vote for Trump in the fall against Clinton.
By and large, these “defectors” aren’t talking about crossing over to the other party. But they are refusing at this point to express their support for Clinton and Trump, a sign of the of the accumulated tensions and divisions in the primaries, and some work to do by both if they are nominated.
“It does mean there has to be some fence mending,” says Charles Franklin, who conducts the Marquette poll.
Only once in the past 44 years has this state failed to vote for the front-runner — and eventual nominee — in both parties (when Gary Hart won the 1988 Democratic Primary). In a year full of surprises, Tuesday’s election could be yetanotherbreakfromthehistorical pattern.