Candidates offer wide range of choices.
Madison — Wisconsin’s presidential primary voters can choose on Tuesday from candidates across the spectrum of American politics.
The options run from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, one of the most conservative legislators on Capitol Hill, to his Senate colleague Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist.
The contrasts come on issues both domestic and foreign: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the delegate leader for Democrats, and Sanders can debate the war in Iraq; and Cruz and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump can also differ on wars in the Middle East.
Candidates’ styles vary along with their substance: Ohio Gov. John Kasich has sought the center and touted his general election credentials while Trump, the real estate mogul, has embraced controversy.
Katie Packer, a veteran of Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 and 2008 presidential elections, said it’s rare for voters in an April primary like Wisconsin’s to have such a wide range of choices and such a good chance to affect who becomes their party’s nominee.
“There’s certainly something for everybody even if it’s not their first choice,” said Packer, chairwoman of Our Principles PAC, which is opposing Trump.
Modern political primaries are often marked by candidates with cookie-cutter agendas, leaving voters to decide based on their experience or style. Not so on Tuesday.
The differences are so stark that they can be quantified — and they have been.
By one respected system developed by political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal for rating congressional votes, Sanders and Cruz are at extreme opposite ends of the spectrum. Based on their voting records in the last Congress, Sanders was the third most liberal member of the Senate, and Cruz was the fourth most conservative member.
Their uncompromising agendas may have made Sanders and Cruz into underdogs nationally, but not here in Wisconsin. Though trailing in the national delegate counts in their respective parties, both men led the state primary race in three different polls released this week.
Of the other candidates in the race, all but Trump have spent time in Congress, with Clinton serving as a senator from New York and Kasich as a member of the House of Representatives. If Clinton and Kasich were still in Congress today, both would fit much closer to the center of each of their respective parties, according to the Poole and Rosenthal system of rating their votes.
Trump’s politics defy easy descriptions. He’s aggressively opposed illegal immigration, showed skepticism of American interventions abroad and said he wants to preserve entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.
Here’s how the candidates stack up on several important issues:
Immigration. Trump has called for deporting immigrants in the country illegally and building a huge wall on the nation’s southern border and, improbably, making Mexico pay for it. He’s also called for freezing the entry of Muslim immigrants into the country, a move that critics say would violate the nation’s tradition of religious liberty.
Cruz opposes a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally while Kasich, Clinton and Sanders all favor a path to citizenship or legal status for those immigrants.
Health care. Clinton backs keeping most of the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, while Sanders favors a so-called single payer plan, under which one government agency would pay for health care provided by private entities.
All three Republicans favor repealing and replacing the ACA. As governor, however, Kasich expanded Ohio’s Medicaid health program with federal money from the ACA, a step that some GOP governors resisted.
Trans-Pacific Partnership
and trade. Cruz, a proponent of free trade, opposes the trade deal with Pacific Rim nations, saying President Barack Obama’s administration did a poor job negotiating it. Kasich supports the TPP.
Clinton backed the effort as secretary of state but now opposes the deal, saying it falls short. Sanders and Trump have both harshly attacked it in their campaigns.
Taxes. Cruz favors a 10% flat tax and abolishing the IRS. Kasich and Trump favor cutting tax rates on ordinary income.
Clinton and Sanders both favor increasing taxes on the wealthy, with Sanders going the furthest in that direction.
Foreign policy. Trump has raised questions about NATO, the costs of American bases abroad, and other U.S. military efforts internationally. But he has also
promised aggressive, unpredictable actions against the nation’s enemies and drawn criticism for saying he would kill the family members of terrorists.
Cruz, a hawk on foreign policy, has criticized Trump as reckless. Kasich has criticized Trump for his proposed freeze on Muslim immigrants and Cruz for his call for police patrols in Muslim neighborhoods in the United States. Kasich argues that good relations with Islamic communities are needed for authorities to identify extremists.
Clinton has touted her experience as a former secre- tary of state while Sanders has said that she should have opposed the Iraq war in 2002 as he did.
Abortion. Sanders and Clinton say women should have a choice while Cruz opposes it in nearly all cases. Kasich opposes it except in limited cases such as rape.
Trump, who has drawn criticism from Republicans for his praise of Planned Parenthood, has said that he opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest or risk to the life of the mother.