Eyes on Wisconsin as battleground state one of four to hold presidential primary

Voters in Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin cast ballots in the presidential primaries on Tuesday. The results, particularly those in the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin, could provide more clues about the general election in November.

Hundreds of delegates are up for grabs, but Joe Biden and Donald Trump have already amassed enough delegates to win their respective nominations. Despite the anticlimactic nature of the results, voters still had a chance to register their discontent with the nominees.

Connecticut and Rhode Island gave voters the opportunity to vote “uncommitted” in the primary, while Wisconsin offered a similar option of “uninstructed delegation”. Wisconsin Democrats will be closely watching the turnout for “uninstructed delegation” after progressive activists launched a campaign encouraging voters to withhold support from the US president to protest his handling of the war in Gaza.

The Listen to Wisconsin campaign, based on similar efforts in states like Michigan and Minnesota, has attracted support from some rank-and-file union members as well as an influential group of low-wage and immigrant workers in the state.

Those voters represent key constituencies whose support Biden will need to win in November, and even a small erosion in support could spell trouble for him in Wisconsin, where he defeated Trump by just 0.6 points in 2020. In 2016, the former president defeated Hillary Clinton by roughly 0.8 points in Wisconsin, and he hopes to repeat that performance this fall.

Polls close at 8pm ET in Connecticut and Rhode Island and at 9pm ET in New York and Wisconsin, with results expected shortly afterwards, so Biden will soon have a better sense of his standing in the battleground state.