Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders rally Wisconsin Democrats
With just days to go before the Wisconsin primary, both Democratic candidates for president came here to pitch themselves to hundreds of faithful party members.
Bernie Sanders, who spoke first Saturday evening at a downtown convention center, said the Democratic Party needs the enthusiasm he’s generated among young voters to prevail in November.
“I am the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump,” he said.
Sanders served in the U.S. Senate as an independent before running for president as a Democrat, and Hillary Clinton has portrayed herself as the more loyal member of the party.
“I’m the only candidate in this race that’s pledged to raise money for the rest of the party,” she said during her speech.
Both of them kept their focus on criticizing Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin who has been a fierce opponent of unions and progressive activists.
There was little of the acrimony that has characterized the Democratic primary in recent days, when Clinton said the Sanders campaign had misrepresented her record on political donations from the fossil fuel industry and Sanders demanded an apology for the accusation.
Wisconsin’s Democratic faithful gather to hear their candidates
With Wisconsin primary looming, Walker says strong organization gives Cruz edge over Trump
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker suggested Saturday that Ted Cruz’s success in outmaneuvering GOP front-runner Donald Trump in internal battles for Republican convention delegates makes him a stronger candidate in fall battleground states like Florida and Ohio.
“If you want to defeat Hillary Clinton, you need to have somebody who has an organization,” Walker told reporters at a bear hunters convention in this small central Wisconsin town, a few hours before Trump was scheduled to arrive for a rally.
In a clear reference to Trump’s trouble matching Cruz in the arcane but potentially decisive fights among party insiders for delegates, Walker said, “When you start to see some of the weaknesses of some of the campaigns that really don’t have real strong grass-roots organizations – that’s what it takes to win in a state like Wisconsin.”
In Wisconsin, Ohio and other states with a history of close presidential votes, an army of volunteers knocking on neighbors’ doors and getting people to the polls is crucial, the two-term Republican governor argued.
Walker, who survived a costly recall election in 2012 and was reelected two years later, has put his substantial political operation to work for Cruz in Wisconsin’s GOP presidential primary on Tuesday.
A Marquette University Law School poll released this week found Trump running 10 percentage points behind the Texas senator.
A Wisconsin loss for Trump would embolden Republican forces trying to stop the New York billionaire from winning the 1,237 delegates he needs to capture the GOP nomination without a contested party convention in Cleveland in July.
Barry Bennett, a Trump campaign senior advisor, used an epithet to dismiss Walker’s remarks as unfounded.
“Our organization has produced 2 million more votes than anybody else’s,” he said, referring to the once-crowded Republican field.
Trouble for Donald Trump in a Wisconsin Republican stronghold
If Donald Trump loses Wisconsin’s GOP presidential primary Tuesday, the Republican dinner here Friday night could help explain why.
Local party loyalists showed little love and sometimes outright disdain for the New York billionaire as they chowed down on fried fish in the American Serb Hall, where two bars flank the banquet room and old-timers played cards in a bowling alley next door.
It didn’t help that while rival candidates John Kasich and Ted Cruz, above, attended the dinner, Trump sent Sarah Palin to speak on his behalf. The crowd giggled during her disjointed speech.
Wisconsin governor touts Ted Cruz in Wausau just before Donald Trump’s arrival
Donald Trump’s delegate troubles keep mounting
The debate over Democratic debates continues
The Hillary Clinton campaign released this statement today.
This is how the Bernie Sanders campaign responded:
Winter isn’t quite over in Wisconsin
‘Stop Donald Trump’ theme rouses Wisconsin Democrats
Donald Trump is now the least popular American politician in three decades
For months, as Donald Trump lurched from controversy to controversy, commentators marveled that his voters remained loyal: Trump is impervious to political attack, some said.
Not so. Trump wasn’t immune; analysts were just failing to look at the whole board.
While Trump’s polarizing campaign did not dent his standing with core supporters in the Republican primaries, it took a punishing toll on how the rest of the electorate views him.