NEW YORK — Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are on their way to the magic delegate numbers they need to clinch their respective party’s presidential nomination (1,237 for Republicans and 2,383 for Democrats), but a few roadblocks remain. The biggest of these, arguably, is Wisconsin, where primary voters go to the polls on Tuesday. Despite sizable delegate leads for the front-runners, many indications suggest the Badger State will go not to them but to the current runners-up, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Here’s a sampling:
PREDICTWISE: CRUZ AND SANDERS
The research project led by David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research in New York City which aggregates betting-market data and polling, has successfully predicted the winner in 53 of 64 individual nominating contests so far this year. As of Sunday, PredictWise gave Cruz an 83 percent chance of winning in Wisconsin, with Trump at 15 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 1 percent.
On the Democratic side, Sanders had a 77 percent chance of extending his current winning streak to six states.
“Trump is not going to get many delegates on Tuesday. He is unlikely to win the state and recent polling puts him down in every single congressional district,” says Rothschild, who notes that Trump’s chances of winning the nomination are down to 54 percent from a recent high of around 80 percent. “Sanders will likely win Wisconsin, but Clinton will pick up enough delegates to keep her ahead of pace to get the nomination.”
REALCLEARPOLITICS: CRUZ AND SANDERS
As of Sunday, the poll averaging and aggregating site RealClearPolitics had Cruz ahead in Wisconsin by nearly 7 points, on average, and up by as much as 10 points in two recent polls. As for the Democrats, Sanders enjoyed a narrower 2.2-point lead, according to the site’s average. Pollsters only examined the state sporadically until late March, but both likely winners on Tuesday appear to have surged in recent weeks.
BING: CRUZ AND SANDERS
With a roughly 78-percent accuracy rating so far this cycle, Bing Predicts also projects a Cruz win on Tuesday, and predicts he’ll carry a bit more than 41 percent of the vote. That’s a shift from last Thursday, when the site expected Kasich to eke out a victory with just barely more than a third of total votes, according to the “machine-learned predictive model” that the Microsoft search engine created. It parses data from polls, prediction markets, search engine queries and social media posts.
Sanders, meanwhile, is projected to win about 54 percent of the vote.
FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: CRUZ AND TOSS-UP
On Sunday, FiveThirtyEight, which is run by former New York Times stats guru Nate Silver, gave Cruz as high as a 95 percent chance of winning Wisconsin. Trump, meanwhile, has just an 11 percent chance when looking at recent state polls; his chances actually dip to 5 percent when national polls and endorsements are factored in. Kasich has a less-than-1-percent chance of winning Wisconsin under either scenario.
For the Democrats, the race is closer and the lead has switched a few times. Sanders now has a 65-percent chance of winning as of Sunday, a big turnaround for the Vermont senator, whom the site had earlier projected would lose to Clinton and who had just 35 percent chance of winning as recently as March 29. When national polls and endorsements were factored in, however, the advantage returned to Clinton, albeit in a 52-48 split.
If that isn’t close enough, according to FiveThirtyEight’s simulated results Sanders will either win by about 2 points or lose by two-tenths of a point.
POLITICAL INSIDERS: CRUZ AND CLINTON
Cruz failed to win over his Republican Wisconsin Senate colleague, Ron Johnson, who avoided making a formal endorsement even as he said he’d be willing to campaign with Trump. Still, Cruz has the most impressive roster of Badger State endorsements: Gov. Scott Walker, Rep. Glenn Grothman, state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, and Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke. Vos was one of at least 20 state legislators who’d earlier supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. When Rubio dropped out in March, several of those lawmakers swung to Cruz. Kasich, meanwhile, was endorsed by the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the state’s largest newspaper.
The Democratic endorsement ledgers are equally lopsided in favor of Clinton, who has the support of Wisconsin’s Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Rep. Gwen Moore and state Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca.
Endorsements from elected officials have historically been among the best available indicators of success in a party primary, although that pattern has been challenged by the 2016 Republican race.
BALLOTCRAFT: CRUZ AND SANDERS
This fantasy politics game, founded by two Stanford grads, has thousands of players who use fake money to buy “shares” in candidates. So far, it has correctly predicted 55 of the 68 nominating contests it has covered. As of Sunday, Cruz was expected to win in Wisconsin, where the site’s users give him roughly 76 percent chance of winning.
On the Democratic side, Sanders has held an edge over Clinton since March 22 and had a 69 percent chance of victory.
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