Ted Cruz won the Wisconsin Republican primary Tuesday, according to a CNN projection. A winner take all state, the victory gets Cruz all of Wisconsin’s 42 delegates.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the Badger State, according to a CNN projection. Wisconsin will divvy up its 86 pledged-delegates based on the primary vote.
Cruz’s win doesn’t give him the lead, but it does complicate things for billionaire Donald Trump. The loss will make it even more difficult for Trump to get the 1,237 delegates required to clinch the GOP nomination, moving the party closer to the possibility of an open contest.
In the final push before the Wisconsin primary, Ted Cruz got some help from college students in his home state.
“He’s really inspired a lot of young people,” said Madison Albrecht, Co-Chair of Austin Millennials for Ted Cruz.
If Albrecht is not in class, she’s on the phone to make cold calls for Ted Cruz’s campaign.
Seated at a picnic table behind her dorm at UT-Austin, Albrecht setup her own makeshift phone bank.
There is a script lit up on the screen of her cell phone but she never looks down, Albrecht knows it by heart.
Each call begins the same way, “Hi my name is Madison and I’m a volunteer with Ted Cruz for President.”
Some conversations end there but Albrecht can’t always hear the call disconnect and she continued on with her pitch.
“I was calling to see if we can count on your support in the upcoming primary election?” After a long pause Albrecht looked around, “Hello?” The person on the other line already hung up but it’s just a few seconds before Albrecht is calling the next person on the list.
“You know, I think not everyone is willing to talk right now,” she said with a laugh.
There are some people who want to talk but many don’t have anything nice to say.
“Okay, well I understand, thank you for voting,” Albrecht said as she hurriedly ended one of the calls.
The hang ups, the snarky responses and a lot of answering machines are all very common for any campaign.
“You don’t always get the response you’re looking for but you keep making calls and at the end of the day I think it could really help to connect people,” Albrecht said.
A junior in college, Albrecht has called thousands of voters in Wisconsin to try to rally up support for Cruz at the polls.
Tuesday’s vote is a significant primary for the Cruz campaign. “This is really one we can take advantage off, to propel Ted Cruz forward and stop Donald Trump’s momentum,” Albrecht said.
A loss in Wisconsin could mean trouble for Donald Trump.
The party’s frontrunner is still way ahead in the delegate count but Trump’s numbers continued to slip at the polls after a series of missteps.
“He obviously touched a nerve with a significant portion of the population,” said David Butts, a veteran political consultant in Texas.
If Trump loses the Wisconsin primary, Butts said, “It might begin to unravel Trump.”
Tuesday’s primary could be the tipping point in the Republican race and Butts said he can see the momentum start to shift in Cruz’s favor.
“They think he is not as damaging to the Republican Party brand as Donald Trump is,” Butts said.
Cold calls are not easy and that’s true for any campaign but based on her experience at the phone bank, Albrecht said the number of positive responses she gets goes up week after week.
“When we’re calling voters its clear, people say ‘you know what, I’m getting behind Ted Cruz’.”
Albrecht said she’s been a Cruz supporter since before he was elected to the U.S. Senate and now she wants to see him get to the White House. “We need a leader who can stand up for what he believes in and stand up for American values,” Albrecht said.
