Despite Convincing Wisconsin Wins, Cruz, Sanders Lose Big In New York

Just a couple weeks ago, Ted Cruz was pointing to Wisconsin as the turning point in this year’s Republican presidential primary campaign.

“Wisconsin has lit a candle guiding the way forward,” the senator from Texas announced at his April 5 election night celebration in Waukesha.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was telling crowds that a win in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary would propel him to victory in New York.

“I think if we win here, we win in New York state, we’re on our way to the White House,” Sanders told a union hall crowd in Janesville the day before Wisconsin’s primary.

So much for that.

Both men were convincingly defeated in New York’s primaries Tuesday, with Sanders losing to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 16 percentage points, while Cruz fell a full 46 points behind frontrunner Donald Trump.

“They pivoted in Wisconsin and then pivoted right back,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden. “This was the state where the frontrunners were upset and New York was the state where the frontrunners reestablished their leads.”

That Trump and Clinton would win New York was hardly a shock. Both call the state home and Clinton represented New York in the U.S. Senate. Polls consistently showed them leading their rivals.

But the margin of victory for Trump defied expectations as he won statewide and carried all but one of New York’s congressional districts. Ohio Gov. John Kasich came in second while Cruz was a distant third.

For Sanders, the loss to Clinton was less dramatic, but potentially more damaging. Sanders had campaigned vigorously in New York, hoping an upset there would give him a plausible path to the Democratic nomination.

Marquette University political science professor Juila Azari said it will be difficult for Sanders to make up ground to Clinton elsewhere.

“In terms of the places where Sanders was likely to do well and has done well, a lot of the states have already gone,” Azari said.

On the Republican side, Azari said Wisconsin could still end up looking like a turning point for Cruz despite his lopsided loss in New York. Burden concurred, saying Wisconsin changed the terms of the debate.

“Before the Wisconsin primary came into view, most of the discussion was about who was ahead in the polls, maybe who had endorsements, who had raised money,” Burden said. “From Wisconsin on, it’s been more about the delegate battle, and Cruz has really invested in that process.”

Cruz won 36 of Wisconsin’s presidential delegates, holding Trump to just six. He’s since picked up delegates at a handful of state conventions.

New York gave Trump a much bigger prize as he won 89 of the state’s 93 available delegates. Kasich won the other four.

Azari said that if Republicans don’t want to nominate Trump, they either need to prevent him from getting the 1,237 delegates to secure the GOP nomination or Cruz needs to cross that threshold.

“Neither of those outcomes is a foregone conclusion by a longshot right now,” Azari said. “I think that’s actually the real story out of (Tuesday).”