Live blog: Wisconsin primary and Nehlenmas; Update: AP calls election for Ryan in big win

10:48 – With all of the significant races called, we’ll wrap things up here. How big was Paul Ryan’s win tonight? Ellen Carmichael goes to the scorecards:

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https://twitter.com/ellencarmichael/status/763205065993621505

His district really turned out for him today. Also worth noting: Ryan Solen won the Democratic primary in WI-01 with a 58/42 win over Tom Breu. Combined, the two Democrats got 19,000 votes — far less than half of what Ryan got in an R+3 district.

10:33 – Politico calls it for Jason Lewis in MN-02. Probably a good call; Miller’s over 1200 votes behind with 41% of precincts reporting in a low-turnout primary.

10:24 – With 36% of precincts reporting in MN-02, Lewis’ lead has narrowed just a bit to 47/29 over Miller. It’s not quite over yet.

10:12 – The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has called WI-08 for Gallagher. He’s up with 73% of the vote and 29% of precincts reporting.

10:05 – Meanwhile in MN-02, former radio host Jason Lewis is vying to win the nomination to succeed the retiring John Kline. Lewis appears to be running away with it with a 50/29 lead over Darlene Miller and 28% of precincts reporting.

10:00 – With 18% reporting in WI-08, Gallagher’s up with 75,4% of the vote. A bit too early to call, and the rural areas will be slow in reporting, but this looks pretty solid for now.

9:54 – Nehlen’s conceding, but has a rather odd valediction under the circumstances:

With half the vote in, Nehlen’s trailing by 68 points, 84/16. Those must have been mighty low expectations …

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9:52 – By the way, Russ Feingold barely won his primary … by an 88/12 margin with a third of the vote in. Ron Johnson will have his hands full in November.

9:50 – I’ve been trying to explain this for months:

https://twitter.com/ZacharyWerrell/status/763189448188264449

9:47 – Lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth on Twitter over the Ryan outcome, but a lot more triumphalism, too. Meanwhile, Gallagher’s still holding steady at 69% in WI-08 with 10% of precincts reporting.

9:40 – CNN now makes the call, too:

9:38 – For some reason, the system seems slow to accept updates. I’ll ping the techs but keep on moving.

9:35 – Told you …

9:33 – In WI-08, Michael Gallagher is off to a big lead, 69% in a three-way race, with 6.5% of precincts reporting.

9:32 – Politico has it 85/15 with a little over 23,000 ballots cast and 28.4% of precincts reporting. Get ready for a call.

9:30 – Decision Desk has caught up, and Ryan’s now up 17,607 to 3,245, 84.4/15.6.

9:26 – For some reason, Waukesha’s counts are way ahead of everyone else’s. At any rate, it’s not going to be close there.

9:24 – Now its Ryan up by 89.7/10.3 with 62% of Waukesha County precincts reporting.

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9:22 – From the Waukesha County clerk’s tally, it’s now 5,517 Ryan, 607 Nehlen (90.1/9.9).

9:20 – First results out of WI-01:

9:15 – If you want waaaay too much information on Nehlen’s ballot selfie, check out WISN. Bottom line: it’s not an enforceable law anyway. Hard to believe anyone cares anyway.

9:07 – I’m watching the results live at Decision DeskHQ [corrected]. So should you. They’re also watching primaries in Vermont for lieutenant governor.

9:05 – Some figurative elbows got thrown in the last few hours. No harm, no foul, apparently.

9:00 – Polls closed. Let’s see how long it takes to get a call in any of the races.

8:58 – Ryan’s not planning much of an event either way:

Unlike most candidates, Ryan was not gathering supporters together to revel with drinks, balloons and a band on Tuesday night.

Instead, a simple podium with a “Ryan for Congress” campaign sign was set up in front of three rows of chairs for reporters at meeting hall in his hometown of Janesville. Ryan planned to speak after a winner is declared in his congressional race against longshot Republican challenger Paul Nehlen.

8:51 – One thing to note — this is an open primary. Voters have to choose one party ballot or the other, but they can cross over.  Ryan’s district (WI-01) is R+3 on the Cook index; Ribble’s (WI-08) is R+2.

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8:46 – If you think Republicans have internecine fights going on, check this out. A radio ad from one Democrat attacks another in an Assembly primary for not signing a recall petition against Scott Walker. The only catch? The other candidate, Jimmy Anderson, was paralyzed from the chest down at the time and couldn’t sign anything. Daniel Bice calls it “the worst political ad this year — by far.” Yeesh.

8:38 – This is how we do election scandals in the Midwest — illegal ballot-pic tweets:

With voting underway in Wisconsin’s partisan primary election Tuesday, the Republican primary challenger to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, Paul Nehlen, may have broken state law by tweeting a photo of what appeared to be a marked ballot.

State law bars any voter from showing “his or her marked ballot to any person or places a mark upon the ballot so it is identifiable as his or her ballot.”

The campaign of Nehlen, a Delavan businessman who is challenging Ryan, may have done just that Tuesday.

https://twitter.com/pnehlen/status/763107284423540736

Yeah, I don’t think they’ll send the squad car for this, but ….

8:30 pm ET: Not too much happening yet, as polls are still open. The Journal-Sentinel noted that Mike Pence will come on Thursday to campaign in Milwaukee and La Crosse, after coming with Donald Trump on Friday to Green Bay. Later — probably around 9:15 ET — we’ll do a Facebook Live chat with Bearing Arms editor Jenn Jacques, who lives in WI-08. Keep that in mind as we watch results come in.

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Original post follows:

Will House Speaker Paul Ryan fend off a primary challenge from Donald Trump supporter Paul Nehlan in Wisconsin’s state primary race? Polls close at 8 pm CT, so the tension will continue until at least, oh … 8:01 pm CT. Anything can happen, and the polling in this race has been rather limited, but what little polling does exist shows Ryan up by 60 or more points. And that was before Trump endorsed Ryan’s re-election last week.

Those aren’t the only races of interest in Wisconsin’s contest tonight. Reid Ribble will retire from his WI-08 House seat at the end of the current session, and three Republican contenders will vie for the nomination:

Mike Gallagher, a former adviser to Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign, Frank Lasee, a state senator from De Pere, and Forestville Village President Terry McNulty face off in the GOP primary to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble.

This district includes Brown County, featured in my book Going Red, and the GOP needs a hold here badly. Friends and colleagues like Gallagher best in this contest, including radio hosts Jerry Bader, Charlie Sykes, and our pal Jenn Jacques from Bearing Arms, who lives in the district.

They need a hold in the US Senate race even more badly, and tonight Russ Feingold should have little difficulty in knocking off Scott Harbach, a private investigator who looked more like a spoiler than a serious Democratic candidate. Feingold has been preparing for years to get a rematch against Ron Johnson, and it’s not looking good for the GOP so far. The most recent poll from Marquette has brought the best news thus far, but it still puts Johnson on the wrong end of a five-point lead, 44/49.

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By the way, the voter-ID law will be in full effect for tonight, even if it won’t be in November:

Two judges have trimmed back the state’s voter ID law in recent weeks, but those going to the polls Tuesday will still need to show identification to cast ballots.

That’s because the judges said their rulings wouldn’t take effect until after the primary. So, voters will have to show ID at the polls Tuesday but not necessarily in the Nov. 8 presidential election, when turnout will be much higher.

So if there aren’t any problems tonight, shouldn’t that mean courts should leave it in place?

We’ll have updates at the top, as usual, in reverse chronological order. Keep refreshing and scrolling until the races are all settled … which shouldn’t be terribly long.

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