MILWAUKEE _ House Speaker Paul Ryan routed political newcomer Paul Nehlen Tuesday in a GOP primary in Wisconsin that was overtaken in its closing days by the endless drama and discord around Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Ryan was leading Nehlen by 80 points in some parts of Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District as the results poured in Tuesday night, and by smaller but still massive margins in other parts.
The Associated Press called the race 30 minutes after the polls closed at 8 p.m.
It had been 42 years since a Wisconsin congressman lost a party primary, and Ryan's long-standing popularity with home-state Republicans made him a very unlikely candidate to repeat that rare feat.
But Trump's muddled intervention in the race last week introduced a possible wild card into an otherwise low-profile campaign, sparking a sudden, heavy dose of national attention.
First the nominee praised Ryan's opponent, an avid Trump supporter, and pointedly withheld his endorsement of the speaker.
Then Trump reversed course three days later under pressure from his party, endorsing Ryan at a campaign event Friday in Green Bay.
Trump's involvement threatened to turn the Ryan race into a proxy war between the country's two most powerful Republicans, representing strikingly different political styles, visions, and stands on issues such as trade and immigration.
Nehlen relished the attention from Trump and conservative media outlets. He attracted the support of some anti-establishment figures on the right, including 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and commentator Ann Coulter. From early on, he hoped for a "David and Goliath" surprise victory, portraying himself as the little guy challenging the GOP establishment. In one video, he even rode his Harley-Davidson, showed his tattoos, and challenged Ryan to an arm wrestling match. His hope was to replicate the achievement of Virginian Dave Brat, an economist who knocked off then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a GOP primary two years ago.
But the challenger had no real history in a district where Ryan grew up and has represented since 1999. Ryan spent significantly on TV ads and enjoyed the support of party leaders, GOP elected officials and talk radio hosts, a major force in Republican politics in southeastern Wisconsin.
Most importantly, polling this summer showed more than 80 percent of GOP voters in his district had a positive view of the Janesville lawmaker, making the speaker a much more popular figure on his home turf than Trump, who lost the Wisconsin primary four months ago.
The last member of Congress from Wisconsin to be ousted in a primary was House Republican Glenn Davis of Waukesha County. He was defeated in 1974 by Bob Kasten, a future U.S. senator. That's the only case of its kind in this state since 1950, according to a review of post-war elections by the web site, Smart Politics. Before that, the most notable example came in 1946, when Republican Joe McCarthy knocked off Robert La Follette, Jr. in a GOP Senate primary.
