Wisconsin Primary

Today is the day that we see if the Bernie Roll continues or is stopped in it's tracks. Today will also see if Ted Cruz can mount a serious campaign against Donald Trump and close his gap.

First, however, just some housecleaning when it comes to the delegate count. I have put all of the delegates down to make sure that I am reporting them to you as correct as possible.

Last week I had all of the Washington delegates accounted for in the case of both Democratic candidates. As it turns out I was wrong in doing this as the majority of the delegates will not be assigned until June. The actual outcome was Bernie with 25 delegates to Hillary's 9. There was some assigning of delegates and two new super delegates to Bernie so the current delegate count without super delegates attached is Hillary with 1243 delegates and Bernie with 980. A win today would push Bernie past the 1000 mark.

On the Republican side, North Dakota held their caucus on Sunday and awarded Ted Cruz with 10 delegates (there are still 18 yet to be assigned). All of North Dakota's delegates are unbound which means that once they get to the convention they are not bound to vote for Cruz. Also, despite being out of the race Ben Carson picked up a delegate in North Carolina. The current race still has Trump in the lead with 737 delegates, followed by Cruz at 475 and Kasich at 143. Kasich has been eliminated from winning the nomination outside of the convention.

On to this week's races. Both the Democratic and Republicans have Wisconsin today with the Democrats also having Wyoming on Saturday.

As I mentioned in the last blog the efforts of the Wisconsin Republican Party to quash people from being able to vote may mean over 300,000 people will not be able to vote today for the crime of not having the correct ID. Because of this, the polling that has been done in the state may mean absolutely nothing.

Since there has been polling let us go ahead and look at it and we will find out tonight if it holds up.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders has completely turned around the polling in the last two weeks. What had been a 6 point lead for Hillary Clinton about two weeks ago has turned into an 8 point lead for Sanders for one polling company watching Wisconsin, Emerson Polling. Their latest poll came out yesterday along with ARG (who has not done any previous polling in the state) showing Clinton with a 1 point win. If this turns into a close Hillary or Bernie win it would be considered a huge Hillary win by the mainstream media. If Bernie wins big, it will mostly be ignored.

There has been no polling in Wyoming but it is considered to be strongly for Bernie Sanders.

On the Republican side, Cruz has lead polling in 8 of the last 10 polls. ARG the newcomer to Wisconsin showed Trump in the lead against Cruz and Kasich 42-32-23%, but Emerson (who has done significantly more polling) had Cruz in the lead over Trump and Kasich 40-35-21. More than likely this race is going to come down to a percentage points and not double digit as ARG is suggesting.

Wisconsin is an open primary and the last time the two parties competed in the same state with an open primary was Ohio. Many have speculated that the reason Bernie lost is because a large contingent of his independent supporters voted on the Republican side for Kasich. Since Wisconsin is not Kasich's home state and he is polling well behind Trump and Cruz I do not expect to see the same thing in Wisconsin. I have not hear of it being planned, but we should be able to tell when the exit polling becomes available later this afternoon.

UPDATE 8:00 PM:

As the pools close both races are too early to call but Cruz has the lead on the Republican side, Bernie on the Democratic side.

It is very important to note that while the polls are now officially closed anyone that was in line to either vote or to register will be allowed to continue through the lines.

UPDATE 8:21 PM:

Cruz and Sanders have been declared the winners of the Wisconsin primaries.

I will update later as the allocation of delegates come in.

UPDATE 2:40 AM:

All but four precincts have been counted and so the only unknown right now is just how the rest of the delegates will be divvied up.

On the Republican side it is a winner take most and Cruz will come out with a fairly decisive victory. As it stands now Cruz leads Trump 33-3 in delegates with 6 delegates unassigned.

On the Democratic side, Bernie leads Hillary 45-31 with 10 delegates unassigned.

The bigger story that will get lost is that if the numbers hold up Bernie is going to beat Hillary by a bigger margin (14%) than Cruz is ahead of Trump (13%). This is really significant as early in the evening the consensus was that Bernie was going to hang on for victory while Cruz (pardon the pun) cruised to victory. The exact opposite happened as throughout the night Bernie's lead grew while Cruz's lead shrunk.

Up next is Wyoming on Saturday for the Democrats and then another long wait for the New York primary on April 19th.

DELEGATE UPDATE:

Republican:

Ted Cruz - 36 delegates

Donald Trump - 6 delegates

OVERALL:

Trump - 743 delegates

Cruz - 511 delegates

DELEGATES LEFT

NEEDED TO WIN:

882 delegates left to allocate

Trump needs to win 56% of remaining delegates to win nomination

Cruz needs to win 82% of remaining delegates to win nomination

Democratic:

Bernie Sanders - 48 delegates

Hillary Clinton - 38 delegates

Unassigned - 3 delegates

OVERALL:

Clinton - 1,280 delegates

Sanders - 1,030 delegates

DELEGATES LEFT

NEEDED TO WIN:

1,955 delegates left to allocate

Hillary Clinton needs to win 56% of the remaining delegates to win nomination.

Bernie Sanders needs to win 69% of the remaining delegates to win nomination.

PRIMARY UPDATE:

Today Democrats go out in Wyoming to caucus for their presidential nominee. Though there has been no polling Bernie Sanders is expected to take the state easily. Also, Colorado has a caucus for the Republicans to determine their nominee. Even though they held a straw poll earlier in the season that was to select delegates whereas today they will actually vote. However, Colorado's delegates are unbound so whoever does win today they delegates are not bound to vote for them at the national convention. Cruz is expected to take most and potentially all of the delegates.

UPDATE 5:25 PM:

With 100% of the count in Bernie has won the Wyoming caucus 56-44% over Hillary for an 8-6 delegate haul.

That brings Hillary to an overall delegate count of 1286 and Bernie up to 1038.

There have not been a lot of updates from Colorado though it does look like Cruz will sweep the delegates. Right now he holds 21 of the delegates. He is the only candidate to pick of delegates.

That means Trump will stay at his 743 delegates, Cruz will climb to 532 delegates, and Kasich (since he is still in the race) stays at 143 delegates.

Next up is the New York primary on April 19.