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Presidential Candidates Need Wisconsin Primary Win To Fuel Momentum

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GOP Presidential Candidate Ohio Gov. John Kasich will campaign in Wauwatosa on Wednesday.

The presidential candidates are starting to pay attention to Wisconsin. For instance, Republicans John Kasich and Ted Cruz will campaign here Wednesday and Democrat Bernie Sanders opened three state field offices last weekend. While Wisconsin's primary is relatively late, a few factors suggest it will be interesting anyway.

On Tuesday April 5, Wisconsin is the only state holding primary elections. So the state is likely to get a lot of attention from the candidates and the media, according to Christopher Murray of Marquette University's Les Aspin Center for Government. He says Wisconsin's "solo" status that day isn't the only thing setting it apart. So is the fact that while voters in most states are required to register with a party, they don’t have to declare party affiliation here.

"What that tends to do is produce an electorate that is a little bit more moderate, not quite as far either to the right or far to the left. So it could be a particularly interesting look at what, kind of, your more middle of the road, less ideological voter is looking at," Murray says.

Murray says in the GOP contest those "more moderate" voters may choose John Kasich. He’s currently in third place, behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and is considered more temperate than both.

And there's another factor that could benefit Kasich -- or Cruz -- according to Carroll University political science professor Lilly Goren. She says Wisconsin has a reputation of being a "nice" state, meaning voters here may not respond well to the brash persona of Donald Trump, even though he has led in the polls here.

"There may be something about the general disposition with regard to Republican voters in Wisconsin that may sort of turn many of them off towards Trump, so Wisconsin may be a place that's not going to be an automatic for Trump to win," Goren says.

Goren says something else that will be interesting to watch here is the choices made by people who had supported Marco Rubio. He recently dropped out of the race. Goren says his backers could scatter among the remaining three candidates or migrate to just one camp.

If Cruz or Kasich were to win Wisconsin, either would still lag behind Trump in delegates. But Dennis Riley, a political scientist at UW-Stevens Point, says the numbers could indicate momentum.

"We might make a difference but we're not going to be decisive. We might be part of a long-term 'slow him down' phenomenon, but that would be all that would happen," Riley says.

Riley expects all the primary candidates to make at least one appearance in Wisconsin in the next couple weeks. He says more yard signs will begin to pop up, too. He says the person who may campaign the hardest here could be Democrat Bernie Sanders, even though he lags far behind Hillary Clinton in the delegate count.

"I think he feels he's had some impact on Hillary Clinton's positions, and that was part of what he was trying to do. I mean, he wants to be president, but part of what he was trying to do is to move her, and I think he feels he has, and can continue to do that," Riley says.

Sanders has called Wisconsin a priority. He may indeed perform well here on April 5, according to Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll. It has shown growing support for Sanders.

"Clinton led by 12 in September, by just nine in November, by just two in January. And then Sanders took a one-point lead in February. So in both January and February, those margins were well within the margin of error," Franklin says.

Franklin says Wisconsin doesn't have as many delegates at stake as some states. Yet he says the contests are significant here because candidates need to sustain momentum, in order to retain viability. So in two weeks, when Wisconsin's primary is the only one, its results should grab the spotlight.

Ann-Elise is WUWM's news director.
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