‘Forward’ to Wisconsin

Coming off a big victory in Arizona where he received 47% of the vote, Donald Trump has significant momentum moving forward to the next important primary – Wisconsin on April 5th. The state motto is “Forward” which might prove prophetic for Trump as he seeks to increase his frontrunner lead, currently at 60% of the required delegate count, to secure the magic number of 1237 BEFORE the Republican convention.

The GOP allocation rules for Wisconsin are a ‘winner-take-all’ based on congressional district. There are a total of 42 delegates up for grabs.

There is much talk and speculation about various options to stop Trump from winning the Republican nomination.¹ At this time of writing, the lack of cohesion in such efforts bodes poorly for success. The two remaining contenders, Cruz and Kasich, continue to fight each other for position as the singular opponent to Trump. This reality must truly frustrate the Cruz campaign in particular, since aside from winning his home state of Ohio from which he received 66 out of his total of 143 delegates, Kasich has no other victories to date.

The pressing question on everyone’s mind is who will Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin and former candidate himself, endorse? Will this endorsement occur before the primary and if so, what impact might it have on the outcome? At the time of his withdrawal from the race back in September 2015, he declared that

Today I believe that I am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive, conservative message can rise to the top of the field. I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current front-runner. [my emphasis]

Such language would seem to indicate that Walker is extremely unlikely to endorse Trump, therefore begging the question, which of the other two would get the nod in an effort to stop the frontrunner. Walker himself seems to be waffling.²

There are 14 days until the Wisconsin primary. It is the only primary that day and will therefore by the most talked about primary race event over the coming days.

Should Trump prove successful in winning Wisconsin, this could easily open the floodgates to further victories in the more delegate rich primaries of late April in the Acela-corridor states like New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut.

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Photo by cornstalker