Candidates hit wall of ‘Wisconsin nice’
Some residents are disturbed by race’s nastiness
Lifelong Wisconsinite Paul Casler, a rockribbed Republican who proudly cast his first Badger State primary vote for Ronald Reagan 36 years ago, hasn’t been this excited about politics in years.
As a passionate Donald Trump supporter, Casler said the New York businessman has the ability to bring some honesty to Washington and an ability to “get things done.” As excited as he is, Casler said he understands that the sharp tenor of the GOP race dominated by Trump has jarred the sensibilities of family and friends accustomed to more polite discourse among political rivals.
“For a lot of the people I know, it’s been quite shocking — especially for the older folks,” said Casler, 54, a state employee who lives in this southern Wisconsin community. “My mother — while she’s never been big into politics — but I think she finds some of what she’s hearing disturbing.”
Wisconsinites’ preference for a healthy dose of congeniality — what some politicians and analysts call “Wisconsin nice” — in their campaign season is being tested by Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who have been unyielding in trading insults.
New polling suggests Trump’s brash style, which helped catapult him into the front-runner’s seat, might not work as well with the more staid sensibilities of the Upper Midwest. Cruz held a 40%-30% lead over Trump, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich took 21% of the vote, according to a Marquette University Law School poll released Wednesday.
Trump has not gained ground since the last Marquette poll in February — when Marco Rubio, Ben Carson and Jeb Bush were in the race. At that point, Trump stood at 30%, Cruz at 19% and Kasich at 8%, and the candidates who have since dropped out of the race took 31% of the vote.
“You have people who are on the right, and you have people on the left here in Wisconsin,” said Tommy Thompson, the state’s former Republican governor who backs Kasich, “but that old Germanic ancestry still prevails very much. People are nice. They take their politics very seriously. They don’t like insults. They don’t like people to take advantage by being hyper-critical. There’s still a niceness here that hasn’t completely worn off.”
Among voters who will vote in the GOP primary, 23% said they are very uncomfortable with the idea of Trump as president, the Marquette Law School poll found. Fourteen percent said the same for Cruz, while 5% are very uncomfortable with Kasich. Of all likely Wisconsin voters, 55% said they would be very uncomfortable with a Trump presidency.
Recently, Trump accused Cruz of being responsible for an ad that ran on social media during the Utah primary campaign that featured an old magazine photo of Trump’s wife, Melania, in which the former model posed nude. The ad was paid for by an anti-Trump Super PAC unaffiliated with Cruz’s campaign.
Cruz accused “Sleazy Donald” of being behind an article in the
National Enquirer that said the senator has been involved in extramarital affairs. Trump offered a veiled threat to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s wife.
Cruz said his campaign was not involved in the Melania Trump ad, and Trump denied involvement in the Enquirer story, which Cruz described as “garbage.”
Trump, who has been campaigning in Wisconsin this week before the primary April 5, continued his assault on Cruz on the stump, referring to the senator as “Lyin’ Ted Cruz.” He pilloried the state’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, as an ineffective leader after Walker formally endorsed Cruz on Tuesday.
Trump mocked Walker, who spent portions of his re-election campaign last year crisscrossing the state on a motorcycle, for his fondness of Harley-Davidson gear. “He doesn’t look like a motorcycle guy to me,” Trump said.
Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the sharp rhetoric of Trump and Cruz doesn’t line up with the political culture in the state. “A lot of the Republican vote is in the Milwaukee suburbs that is very dense with Republican families,” he said. “Those are establishment Republicans who are not going to like messaging about spouses.”