Thread: GOP Establishment in Wisconsin Unites Against Trump

GOP Establishment in Wisconsin Unites Against Trump

Next week’s primary there will be biggest test yet for New York businessman’s presidential campaign

By Reid J. Epstein and
Janet Hook
March 30, 2016 5:30 a.m. ET

ROTHSCHILD, Wis.—Wisconsin’s presidential primary next Tuesday represents the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s ability to overthrow a Republican establishment united against him.

Top Wisconsin GOP players, from Gov. Scott Walker to state legislators to the powerful conservative talk-radio voices on Milwaukee radio, have been winning pitched battles together in defense of conservative ideals since Republicans took over state government in 2011. Now that organization is united against Mr. Trump in a way he hasn’t seen before, even in states where he faced millions of dollars in attack ads.

The state’s anti-Trump forces are largely aligned with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Mr. Walker formally endorsed Mr. Cruz Tuesday. That has left Mr. Trump flat-footed in his first entry into Wisconsin politics. He appeared surprised during a round of radio interviews Monday, telling one host, Charlie Sykes in Milwaukee, that he didn’t know Mr. Sykes had vowed never to support him.

Even here in the vast wooded northern part of the state friendliest to his populist message, public endorsements of the New Yorker are as scarce as an unfrozen lake in the dead of winter. The local congressman, Sean Duffy, is a Republican who had backed Mr. Walker first, and then Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. He said he doesn’t know a single elected official in his district who is publicly backing Mr. Trump.

“There’s a number of people in my district who are quiet Trump supporters,” said Mr. Duffy, who said he is still deciding between voting for Mr. Cruz or Mr. Trump. “If you just listen to the media here there’s a lot of pushback that people get for supporting Trump. There’s some social pressure as well: In their own community, this elitist mentality that tells them they are stupid to support a Donald Trump candidacy.”

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One elected official from Mr. Duffy’s district who does back Mr. Trump is Travis Nez. He is one of 13 elected supervisors in Price County, which has a population of about 14,000 an hour and a half north of here.

“There’s a lot of people that support him but they won’t say it publicly, they’re just afraid of being lambasted,” said Mr. Nez, 22, who said he didn’t know a single other elected official who backs Mr. Trump. “But it’s like, you got to do what you got to do.”

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The population here fits the Trump demographic to a T: The median age of the Seventh congressional district is six years older than the state average, just 2.5% of the population is black or Hispanic, and the last generation has seen thousands of the state’s manufacturing jobs move offshore.

Mr. Trump has dubbed his supporters “the silent majority,” and there is broad agreement from political observers here that he will carry by a wide margin the Seventh district, a part of the state known as “Up North.” It stretches some 270 miles north to south and 235 miles east to west along the state’s border with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Mary Czaja, a Republican assemblywoman from Irma, said she is surprised by some of the people who support Mr. Trump. “There’s a lot of business owners and even more blue-collar people who are tired of the same old same old in Washington.” said Ms. Czaja, who is backing Mr. Cruz.

It is ironic that Mr. Cruz, who has carefully crafted an antiestablishment image, is now scooping up endorsements from the Wisconsin GOP apparatus, including from Mr. Walker.

“Wisconsin is a battleground,” Mr. Cruz said here on Monday. “The entire country right now is looking at the state of Wisconsin. This state has a national platform, a national megaphone.”

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is largely viewed as an afterthought in the state. His campaign this week pulled some of its advertising off the Wisconsin airwaves. But he did on Tuesday receive the endorsement of the state’s largest newspaper, though the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has far less influence among the state’s Republicans than the radio hosts backing Mr. Cruz.

One sign that Cruz allies are concerned about tamping down Mr Kasich’s support came late Tuesday when a pro-Cruz super PAC announced it would spend $500,000 in the state attacking the Ohio governor.

There’s been little reliable public polling of Wisconsin. Marquette Law School, which conducts the state’s most respected political survey, hasn’t polled since February, though a new poll is scheduled for release Wednesday afternoon. Recent Marquette Law polls have found Mr. Trump far more popular among Republicans in the state’s rural areas in the north and west than he is in the urban and suburban counties between Milwaukee and Green Bay.

State Sen. Tom Tiffany, a Republican who represents a district that hugs the Wisconsin-Michigan border, vouched for Mr. Cruz here even though he said he expects his constituents to back Mr. Trump.

“We’re the oldest part of the state demographically and it follows very closely with what other parts of the Midwest in how they’re voting,” said Mr. Tiffany, a part-time dam tender when he isn’t at the state capitol in Madison.

No member of Wisconsin’s state legislature is backing Mr. Trump; almost all of the capitol’s GOP delegation had backed Mr. Walker’s campaign. None of 10 rural Wisconsin lawmakers interviewed for this story knew of anyone elected to local offices in their districts who back Mr. Trump.

“There’s a huge disconnect for a lot of elected Republicans, where they have to come to terms with the fact that Donald Trump is winning my district, but I’m a core Republican and I stand for these core principles that he doesn’t represent,” said Matt Batzel, the Sheboygan-based executive director of American Majority, which offers training to conservative candidates for local political offices. Mr. Batzel said he plans to vote for Mr. Cruz.

But for Mr. Trump’s rank-and-file supporters, opposition from elected Republicans is a feature, not a bug of his campaign. “They are all in cahoots with each other, Democrats and Republicans,” said Vance Neuenschwanden, a 44-year-old weed-control worker from Monroe who attended Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Janesville. “Trump isn’t either and that’s what we need.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-esta...ump-1459330202

“There’s a huge disconnect for a lot of elected Republicans, where they have to come to terms with the fact that Donald Trump is winning my district, but I’m a core Republican and I stand for these core principles that he doesn’t represent,” said Matt Batzel, the Sheboygan-based executive director of American Majority, which offers training to conservative candidates for local political offices. Mr. Batzel said he plans to vote for Mr. Cruz.

But for Mr. Trump’s rank-and-file supporters, opposition from elected Republicans is a feature, not a bug of his campaign. “They are all in cahoots with each other, Democrats and Republicans,” said Vance Neuenschwanden, a 44-year-old weed-control worker from Monroe who attended Mr. Trump’s Tuesday rally in Janesville. “Trump isn’t either and that’s what we need.”

This is the truth. I hope there's enough truth supporters to win on Tuesday. Poll looks bad, but not sure it's right. I don't believe Cruz had a 20 point jump in a few days, unless it was a reaction to the media lies that will get sorted out by Tuesday.