By Bill Badour
On Tuesday, April 7, Wisconsin held their presidential primary, making them the first state to hold a primary since March 17 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On April 6, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued an executive order postponing the primary election until June 9 due to COVID-19. The Wisconsin Supreme Court overruled the governor’s order within hours and moved the primary back to April 7.
Later that day, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin could not extend the deadline for absentee ballots. The ballot results will be released April 13.
The fear of coronavirus caused a shortage in poll workers, leading to the closure of many poll stations.
Milwaukee typically has 180 polling places, but with the shortage of workers, only five polling stations remained open. The average time to cast a ballot was between one-and-a-half hours and two hours.
On the day after the Wisconsin primary, April 8, Bernie Sanders dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination.
Sanders exiting the race clears the way for Joe Biden to be the Democratic party nominee, setting up a Biden-Trump general election.
A recent national CNN poll shows Biden leading against Trump with a 53% to 42% preference among 875 registered voters. A recent Quinnipiac University poll has Biden leading Trump 49% to 41%. Another recent poll conducted by Monmouth University, which was rated an A+ poll by FiveThirtyEight, gave Biden a smaller edge over Trump. The poll showed Biden ahead of Trump by four points, by a tally of 48% to 44%.
It is important to note that polls taken this far out from the November election are not usually good indicators of actual voting patterns. As we get closer to the general election, more polls will provide better clarity of a winner.