After an exceedingly tough week of one political misstep after another, Republican front-runner Donald Trump braces for an acid test in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday with some of the polls putting his rival, Senator Ted Cruz, way ahead.
Pundits believe that a defeat in Wisconsin could slow down Trump’s momentum and make it increasingly difficult for him in his march towards the magic figure of 1,237 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination.
Although his home-State of New York with far more delegates (95) could help him bounce back two weeks later, a loss in Wisconsin (42 delegates) will add to his immediate problems with his growing band of opponents within the Republican establishment regrouping against him.
A Real Clear Politics average of polls on Monday put Cruz ahead of Trump by nearly 7 percentage points (40.2 to 33.4), with the third candidate, Ohio Governor John Kasich, trailing at 18.6. At least two of the polls in this mix, conducted by Fox News and Marquette law School, have given Cruz a clear 10 per cent lead.
On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton also faces a stiff challenge with her spirited rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, leading in four of five polls. Overall, Sanders is slightly ahead of Clinton (47.2 to 42.5).
Trump may have defied all adverse projections over the past many months, but pundits believe that some of his recent pronouncements, notably his advocacy of punishment of women opting for illegal abortion, will cost him in the remaining primaries, regardless of his attempts to clarify
his remarks.
In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker, who gave up his own presidential bid last September, endorsed Cruz last week in a renewed bid by conservatives to keep out Trump. Calling Cruz a “principled constitutional conservative”, Walker regards him as “the best-positioned candidate both win the Republican nomination and defeat Hillary Clinton”.
Sensing the challenge ahead, Trump himself appears to have started a course correction of starts. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday night, Trump admitted to some possible missteps. As he put it, “Was this my best weekIJ I guess not.” He would not have joined the “War over Wives” with Cruz, by retweeting an unflattering picture of Cruz’s wife, but he still saw the Senator’s hand in the recent publication of a nude picture of his own wife, Melania Trump, from her modelling days 15 years ago.
On his controversial remark on punishing women opting for illegal abortions, Trump said, “As a hypothetical question, I would have
rather answered it in a different manner.”
He, however, defended his other controversial statements over diminishing US role in NATO and proposing that Japan and South Korea develop their own nukes to deal with the North Korean challenge – a stand that came in for sharp criticism from President Barack Obama, who questioned his knowledge of word affairs, let alone intricacies of nuclear proliferation.