Wisconsin, where forty-two delegates are at stake, seems to be another state where Trump is struggling to move beyond his base. Having secured the backing of Governor Scott Walker and other local notables, Cruz appears to have the momentum going into Tuesday’s contest, which will award eighteen delegates to the statewide winner and a total of twenty-four to the winners of individual districts. But, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten, if the Marquette Law School poll, which was released this week and shows Cruz leading by ten points, turns out to be accurate, Trump could end up winning hardly any delegates at all, which would deal the heaviest blow yet to his campaign.
That’s the dream scenario for the Republicans who are fighting Trump. A couple of notes of caution are in order, though. The Marquette poll, which received a huge amount of attention, had a small sample size and a large margin of error. Another new poll, from Public Policy Polling, shows Cruz just one point ahead of Trump. The primary will be restricted to registered voters, which would normally favor the Texas senator. But people can register at the polling place, and registered Democrats are also permitted to vote, which should help Trump.
Even if he does badly in Wisconsin, it won’t necessarily imply that he can’t get to twelve hundred and thirty-seven, or that a contested convention is inevitable. After Tuesday, the race moves to the Northeastern Corridor, where Trump will be hoping to rack up some big wins. In New York, for example, where ninety-five delegates will be up for grabs, on April 19th, a new survey from Quinnipiac University shows him leading Cruz by a huge margin, thirty-six percentage points, with Kasich even further behind. In Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, which vote the following week, not much polling has been done recently. But the evidence that exists suggests that Trump is ahead.
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