Update 10:30 PM Eastern: Unsurprisingly Paul Ryan won his primary. It was a tall order to unseat a Speaker of the House. But as I proposed, the results could be an indicator of the strength of the populist movement and if it was not being measured by the polls.

Unfortunately for Trump supporters (and I are one), the results indicate little to no energy in the WI 1st district for populism over elitism.  With 80% of precincts reporting, Ryan is ahead by 69% points:

Paul Ryan

84.4%

45,034 votes

—

Paul Nehlen

15.6%

8,297 votes

Given the uniqueness of this election cycle with candidate Trump and the populist wave building in many countries of “the west”, it is hard to put much trust in the polls.  This lesson was learned during the Brexit vote in the UK when polls showed the “stay” campaign comfortably ahead on the day of the vote:

The paper ballots were still being counted by hand. Only the British overseas territory of Gibraltar had reported final results. Yet the assumption of a Remain victory filled the room—and depressed my hosts. One important journalist had received a detailed briefing earlier that evening of the results of the government’s exit polling: 57 percent for Remain.

Emphasis mine. Brexit went on to win 52% to 48%.  That is a swing of +14% to -4% on the day of the vote! The polls were off by 18% against the Elites/Globalist who inhabit the European Political Industrial Complex (or PIC). I commented on why the polls were likely to be so far off:

… why would any anti-big-government voter participate in a poll from the PIC? They won’t. So the polls become more and more over sampled by the PIC defenders: an ever shrinking fraction of the voting population.

[Note: Political Industrial Complex (PIC) = all the career politicians, all the career bureaucrats, the sea of career political consultants and career staff, the political donor class and their career lobbyists, and of course the pliant career political news media. The EU is the epitome of the Political Industrial Complex – the apex of bad ideas hoisted upon the masses without thought or responsibility. The “elite” denizens of the PIC live apart from the rest of humanity]

Today we are going to get a clear indication of how deep the ant-elite wave is in America. Paul Ryan, GOP Speaker of the House, is fighting off a primary challenger who has built his “Hail Mary” campaign on the populist movement. How he performs against Ryan is going to be a clear and unambiguous measure of the anti-government movement.

I seriously doubt Ryan will lose. But I also seriously doubt he will win by 60%.  The closer Ryan  gets to 60%, the less likely we have “Brexit In America” and the more likely it is Hillary can pull this election out.  But if Ryan is down near 20% (or worse), then it is more likely Trump will ride a populist wave to victory in November.

This will be a very enlightening evening as the primary results come in.

BTW, turnout seems to be low today, which is probably really bad for Ryan.  We know the populist voters have energy (see Trumps record breaking vote totals in his primaries).  So ambivalence will probably be on the Ryan side.  The lower the turnout, the more likely it is Ryan’s tepid supporters who just failed to be worried about him losing. Paul Nehlen’s supporters – who were all about sending a message to DC – will win the day on the urge to purge DC.

Check back for updates if we detect a hint of Brexit tonight

Tags: 2006 Election, Paul Nehlen, Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Primary