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Excerpt: "This time last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders was relatively unknown in Wisconsin. Four months later, in August 2015, polls still showed Sanders trailing Clinton by about 12 percentage points. Fast forward to Tuesday night, and Wisconsin clearly knows about Sanders."

Bernie Sanders, speaking in Wyoming, celebrates his victory in the Wisconsin primary. (photo: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Bernie Sanders, speaking in Wyoming, celebrates his victory in the Wisconsin primary. (photo: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg/Getty Images)


Once the Underdog in Wisconsin, Bernie Sanders Pulls Out a Win in the State's Primary

By Emily Atkin and Alice Ollstein, ThinkProgress

06 April 16

 

his time last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was relatively unknown in Wisconsin.

To be fair, he hadn’t yet declared his candidacy — but in April 2015, 58 percent of likely Wisconsin Democratic voters were supportive of Hillary Clinton, the current frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race. Four months later, in August 2015, polls still showed Sanders trailing Clinton by about 12 percentage points.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, and Wisconsin clearly knows about Sanders. The independent senator from Vermont won the state’s Democratic primary, according to projections from Fox News and NBC News.

It was not a complete surprise for the state that has a history of electing socialists to feel the Bern. But Sanders campaigned effectively on the state’s college campuses, winning over students like the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s Tessa Strack.

Strack spoke to ThinkProgress moments after leaving Sanders’ rally on Monday night. “I got goosebumps a couple times, embarrassingly,” she said. “It’s just so important to me that he is calling out other people in this race who are completely sexist and homophobic and racist. He’s a white guy, but I feel like he stands for me.”

Strack, a business major, said she also liked Hillary Clinton, but felt Sanders was better equipped to “shake up” the status quo.

“That jolt is something our political system needs,” she said.

In Wisconsin, both Sanders and Clinton campaigned not only against their Republican rivals, but against Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker. While on the campaign trail, Sanders criticized “cowardly” Walker’s efforts to implement a voter ID law, and slammed the governor for making it harder to vote for college students, low income people, and the elderly.

“Democracy means one person and one vote, and whether Governor Scott Walker likes it or not, that is exactly what we are going to bring to every state in this country, including Wisconsin,” Sanders said while campaigning in Wisconsin. “I say to Governor Walker and all of the other cowardly Republican governors: ‘If you cannot win or participate in a free and fair election where everybody votes, get out of politics and get a new job.’”

Still, Sanders faces an uphill battle to secure the nomination. Wisconsin awards its 86 pledged delegates proportionally, so depending on the final result, Clinton still stands to secure a good portion of those delegates. She currently leads Sanders in pledged delegates by about 300.

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