Here are the paths to victory for candidates in Wisconsin

MILWAUKEE — For all the talk of polling, focus groups and metadata in political campaigns, the basic goal is really pretty simple: Getting your supporters to the polling place. Get out the vote operations will be key in today’s Wisconsin presidential primary.

For the Republicans, Charles Franklin, head of the widely respected Marquette Law School Poll, says Wisconsin can be seen as essentially two regions: The Milwaukee suburbs and the rural northwest.

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Three counties ringing Milwaukee — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington (dubbed the “WOW” counties) — account for about 40 percent of the state’s Republican vote and typically decide the outcome of GOP primaries.

Four years ago, Mitt Romney racked up a 30-point margin in these counties on his way to a 44 percent to 37 percent win over Rick Santorum. In 2008, John McCain rode a 33-point margin there to a 56 percent to 38 percent victory over Mike Huckabee.

Sen. Ted Cruz hopes to follow that pattern. The most recent Marquette Law School Poll found Cruz leading Donald Trump by a 2-to-1 margin among likely voters in the Republican primary in the Milwaukee media market, which includes the WOW counties, and pulling even with him in the northwest, home to about 20 percent of the state’s Republican vote.

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Until the closing weeks, the northwest had been Trump country, with Cruz getting only about 10 percent support from likely Republican primary voters.

“I think it is largely Cruz becoming the anti-Trump,” says Franklin, the pollster. “I don’t think Ted Cruz’s issues positions have changed.”

In the Democratic race, Franklin looks at Madison, the liberal bastion that’s home to the University of Wisconsin, and Milwaukee, a virtual island of racial diversity.

The youth vote in Madison is buoying Sanders in the polls. “Sanders is doing enormously well with voters under 45 and unbelievably well with those under 30,” says Franklin.

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Historically, the young have been unreliable voters. “The question for Election Day is: Do these young voters really turn out for Sanders and give him the enormous vote which is holding him up in the polls right now?”

Clinton is looking to her strength with non-white voters. Not only do they tend to be unreliable primary voters, there’s also a smaller proportion of them in Wisconsin — primarily in Milwaukee — than in other Midwestern states, such as Ohio, which she won.

“Within the Democratic Party [in Wisconsin] it’s about 20 percent of the electorate, but that’s not in and of itself enough to be overwhelming,” says Franklin.

“Sanders needs to win big in the Madison area and hold his own in the Milwaukee area,” he says. “Both of those are happening in our polling right now and this is where the question is always what actually happens–who really gets up and goes to the polls on Tuesday.”