Election 2016: Wisconsin Results

The message from Wisconsin. What the results in the Badger State tell us (and don’t) about the candidates and their paths to the nomination.

Well, OK Wisconsin! You definitely had your say. No Trump, no Clinton. It’s Bernie Sanders riding high in Wisconsin’s Democratic race, and Ted Cruz for the Republicans. True, Donald Trump was self-immolating for a week. Hillary Clinton was off raising money. But these are big results. Are they big enough to remake these races? They’re definitely big enough to turn everyone’s heads. Maybe to have two contested conventions this summer. This hour On Point, game on, out of Wisconsin.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Lisa Lerer, national political reporter for the Associated Press, focusing on the Democratic presidential primary. (@llerer)

Eliana Johnson, Washington editor for the National Review. (@elianayjohnson)

Erica Grieder, senior editor at Texas Monthly. Author of "Big, Hot, Cheap And Right." (@EricaGrieder)

Associated Press: Cruz captures crucial victory over Trump in Wisconsin — "Republican Ted Cruz captured a crucial victory Tuesday in Wisconsin, a significant step in his efforts to block front-runner Donald Trump's path to the presidential nomination and push the GOP contest toward a rare convention fight. In the Democratic race, Bernie Sanders hoped to extend his string of victories over front-runner Hillary Clinton."

National Review: Why a Contested Convention Favors Cruz — "if the race comes down to a fight on the convention floor, it’s almost certain to become clear that there are, in fact, benefits to being a party insider, relatively speaking. And it may be the richest irony in a cycle full of them that Cruz, whose feud with the party establishment is the stuff of legend, finds himself in the best position to reap those benefits if he can hold off Trump until July."

Texas Monthly: Seriously, Republicans. It’s Time to Drink the Cruz Kool-Aid — "It may actually be too late for Cruz to stop Trump, and—relatedly—that even now, many Republicans appear to be laboring under some serious misconceptions about the causes of their predicament and the solution to it. Some, like the editors of the National Review, are calling for voters to coalesce around Cruz because he has proven his merits as a candidate. Many Republican leaders and conservative voices are, however, merely calling on voters to hold their nose and vote for Cruz as a means to an end. In light of the unfortunate delegate math, he now represents the party’s only chance of stopping Trump, meaning that only Cruz can give the GOP establishment a chance to pick a nominee it prefers — not Trump, in other words, and also not Cruz."