Texas Senator Ted Cruz commanded new momentum Wednesday in the race for the White House with a solid Wisconsin primary win, making it harder for frontrunner Donald Trump to clinch the Republican nomination outright. Upstart senator Bernie Sanders also beat frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the Midwestern state, bolstering his claim to be a viable alternative standard-bearer to the former secretary of state and first lady.
Sanders has now won six of the last seven Democratic nominating contests against Clinton. But the Wisconsin results were almost certainly more damaging for Trump. The billionaire stormed to the fore last year with a brash anti-establishment message. But he has suffered setbacks in recent weeks with a string of controversial comments about abortion, Nato and nuclear weapons.
Cruz captured most of Wisconsin's 42 Republican delegates, making it far less likely that Trump will win the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the nomination outright. This raises the prospect of a contested convention in July when the delegates meet to choose the party nominee for the November presidential election. "Tonight is a turning point. It is a rallying cry," Cruz told cheering supporters in Milwaukee after he received a hug from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, one of several former 2016 presidential candidates to have endorsed him. "It is a call from the hard-working men and women of Wisconsin to the people of America. We have a choice, a real choice."