Wisconsin GOP Becomes 10th State Party to Rig Its Primary for Trump
January 9th 2020
President Trump in Wisconsin (The White House)
By Dan Desai Martin
Donald Trump will be the only Republican listed on the GOP primary ballot, the Associated Press reported.
A committee of Democrats and Republicans met on Tuesday to decide who will be on each party’s respective primary ballot. The Democrats on the committee put forward 14 names, including frontrunners such as former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigeig.
Republicans on the committee only put one name forward: Donald Trump. Both lists were unanimously approved by a voice vote, according to the AP.
The decision by the state’s Republican Party means Wisconsin will be the tenth state to fix the primary process to ensure Trump will be the party’s 2020 nominee, joining Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and South Carolina.
“So yet another state in America wants to disenfranchise its voters,” former Rep. Joe Walsh, a Republican from Illinois who is challenging Trump for the nomination, wrote on social media following the announcement. “This kind of un-American bullshit shouldn’t happen here,” he added, accusing Republicans in those 10 states of treating Trump like a king.
After the decision, Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Andrew Hitt told reporters that the Walsh campaign, and the campaign of Bill Weld, a former Massachusetts governor also challenging Trump for the nomination, “didn’t do the work” to get on the ballot, according to the AP.
The Wisconsin Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.
Republicans in Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina simply canceled their nominating contests.
Like Wisconsin, Republicans in Georgia and Minnesota refused to list any other candidates on their primary ballot.
In Michigan, Republicans changed the threshold of votes a candidate would need to receive in order to win delegates.
The contest for the Democratic nominee is wide open, with Iowa holding the first nominating contest on Feb. 3. Voters in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina will also weigh in during February before 16 states and territories hold primaries on March 3, known as “Super Tuesday.”
Biden leads in the average of national polls, while Sanders holds a small lead in the average polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. Biden holds the lead in Nevada and South Carolina.
Posted under Creative Commons license