Does John McCain Have Wisconsin Wrapped Up?

I don't think the right side of the Cheddarsphere would think so, given their masochistic devotion to Fred Thompson, but there's at least two points to be made that suggest if McCain can survive Super Tuesday he'll take home the Badger state.

For one thing, McCain consistently does better than the rest of his Republican colleagues in head-to-head match-ups against Democrats. If "electability" is going to be on GOP voters' minds when they go to the ballot, that's going to help. The major caveat to this, however, is that Thompson won the only "recent" intra-GOP poll done in the state. But take "recent" with a grain of salt since the poll was fielded at the beginning of December. Thompson might not even be around on February 19th.

The other point comes from the results of last night's GOP primary in Michigan. Check out this great map made by Nick Beaudrot of Cogitamus:


McCain prevailed in the teal-ish counties, while Romney won the orange ones. Our neighbors to the north in the UP were all about John McCain.

I mention this because the UP is probably more cultural similar to Wisconsin than it is to Michigan Proper and is probably a decent indicator of what could happen here.

I would not be surprised if you see a similar map of Wisconsin on primary night -- one that shows solid support for McCain in the more rural western and northern parts of the state and support for another candidate in the southeastern suburbs of Milwaukee. Another possibility would be that support in the southeast is divided among several candidates.

Then again, so much has already happened during this election that trying to make a prediction is tantamount to an open invitation to being wrong.