For the Record: On, Wisconsin!

View this email in your browser Brought to you by USATODAY.com Start filling Camp Randall Stadium with melted Gouda and get ready for a presidential cheese wrestling free-for-all. Since neither party has a clear favorite in next Tuesday's Wisconsin primaries, and registered Wisconsin voters can cast their ballot for either party's primary, there's only one way to settle this: dropping all five candidates in the middle of a cheese-filled stadium and waiting to see which one emerges with their lactose tolerance intact. Now, on to the Upper Midwest ... Hello, Wisconsin! Next Tuesday's Wisconsin primaries should be really, really, really fun. For the first time since - to be honest, we're not sure the last time this happened - every single Democratic and Republican candidate in the race has a not-implausible shot at winning in the state's open primaries. For the Democrats , one recent poll shows Hillary Clinton up by 6, while another has Bernie Sanders by 4 - which is great, but Bernie needs more than a 4-point win. "He's got to have nights where he's taking chunks out of her delegate lead, not slivers," said Joe Zepecki, a Wisconsin Democratic strategist. On the Republican side, various polls from the last two weeks show Donald Trump up by 2 and Ted Cruz up by as much as 10 ... and even John Kasich is within 2 points in one poll. Governor and former presidential candidate Scott Walker (who has  approval ratings in the mid-80s among Wisconsin Republicans) endorsed Cruz Tuesday morning. Trump spent much of Tuesday going after Walker  for cutting school and highway funding instead of raising taxes - a patented Trumpian anti-establishment move, but one that may not win him any fans among undecided Republican primary voters. Kasich sat down with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board to talk about how he would defeat Trump, Cruz and basic mathematics. Hillary and Bernie each made campaign stops in the state, trading the usual barbs  about their opponent being a tool of the gun industry/Wall Street. Five more days of campaigning, and then it's time for an epic Tuesday. Scraps of the pledge will be available on eBay next month Will he rip the pledge apart by hand? Run it through a shredder? Toss it to the crowd at his next rally and watch them tear it to pieces like a chicken at an Alice Cooper concert? At Tuesday's CNN town hall, all three remaining Republican candidates  withdrew their pledges to support the eventual GOP nominee no matter what. But Trump is the only one with an actual prop, and the personality to make a spectacle of its destruction. It managed to survive Wednesday intact, but it can't have much longer to live. With campaign rhetoric heating up, each candidate has found reason to break their vow: Trump says the party isn't treating him fairly (one of the conditions of the contract); Cruz won't back the man who insulted his wife ; and Kasich was also in the room and just wanted to be like the other kids. Note to GOP leaders: If you sign a contract with someone who gets to decide when it's not longer enforceable, it's not actually a contract. Solve for XX Everyone waiting for Trump to pivot to a more moderate general election message -  or waiting for him to not just say whatever pops into his mind at any given moment - can wait a bit longer. Yesterday, Donald implied that if abortion were ever made illegal, women who received abortions should be punished. A jukebox record scratched. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. And Donald Trump Jr. helpfully doubled down on Twitter. Within hours, Trump's campaign issued a statement that doctors, not women seeking abortions, should be punished in a hypothetical no-legal-abortions world. Pro-life stances may not be deal-breakers for candidates trying to win over female voters (one of the more recent polls shows just  54% of women identify as pro-choice). But the prospect of women being "punished" (fined? jailed? It wasn't clear) is a less-than-ideal message. The Trump campaign's conflicts with women don't end there. Sixteen conservative female journalists called for Trump to fire his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, after he was charged with battery in an incident with Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields. Should Trump start to worry about offending just one slice of the electorate? Probably, since that one slice has made up over half of all voters  in every presidential election since 1996. Mark your calendars • April 26: Clinton's camp says she'll lock up the nomination after primaries in Pennsylvania and four other states (USA TODAY) • June 10: GOP chair Reince Priebus says we'll know for sure if there will be a contested convention by ... oh, ha ha, after the last state votes. Funny guy over here (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) • July 18-21: The gun-free Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio • July 25-28: The probably also gun-free Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • November 8: Only 222 days until Election Day! 223 days until a severe case of buyers' remorse sets in Invite others to enjoy For the Record newsletter. Thank you for subscribing to the For the Record. Got some feedback, a tip or just want to say hello? Email us at newsletters@e.usatoday.com. USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Unsubscribe from the For the Record Why did I get this? 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