Jason Stein and Patrick Marley

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald on Wednesday called on his fellow Republicans in the state to unite around Donald Trump as their party's presumptive presidential nominee — even as another GOP leader expressed uncertainty about what to do.

The Juneau senator called for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who suspended his campaign Tuesday night after losing the Indiana primary to Trump, to release his GOP delegates from Wisconsin so they can vote for the real estate billionaire on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention this summer.

Also Wednesday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich suspended his campaign, leaving none of the original 16 opponents to Trump left in the race.

Those moves set up a showdown within the Republican Party in Wisconsin, where only a month ago conservatives had voted for Cruz in a primary defeat for Trump that some had hoped would turn the nomination fight against him.

"We're on the Trump train now," Fitzgerald said, making the opening salvo in that fight Wednesday.

Fitzgerald dismissed as dangerous the talk from many conservatives in the state that they cannot support Trump because of his controversial statements and unorthodox positions for a GOP candidate.

"With the news of last night we can't put the U.S. Senate and House and frankly legislative seats in jeopardy (by opposing Trump)," Fitzgerald said. "It's going to have an effect."

Speaking to reporters in West Allis Wednesday, Gov. Scott Walker said he hasn't yet decided on whether Wisconsin's delegates should be released or whether he would campaign with Trump. Walker endorsed Cruz and clashed with Trump in the run-up to the Wisconsin primary, with the mogul saying of Walker's ill-fated presidential run, "We sent him packing like a little boy."

But the governor left no doubt that he would back Trump — his party's nominee — as he said he would do last year as a candidate at the first Republican presidential debate. That was a promise that Trump refused to make at the time.

Walker pointed to differences between Trump and the likely Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on federal taxes, regulation and Supreme Court nominees.

"I stood on that stage. There were seventeen of us in the race last year and we were all at Cleveland...I made a statement as did the others that we would support the nominee and I think Donald Trump is clearly better than Hillary Clinton for a variety of reasons," Walker said.

On Twitter, the reaction to Fitzgerald was swift from members of the Never Trump movement like conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes.

"No, Wisconsin is not on the Trump train...We voted, Fitz," Sykes tweeted.

But in a sign some positions could be changing, Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna) — a vocal Trump critic — declined to say what he would do in the fall, other than to say he wouldn't vote for Clinton.

"My vote is my vote and I'll make my decision somewhere down the line," he said on how — or whether — he would vote in the presidential election. "The only thing I'll make clear is I'll not support Hillary Clinton. I'm basically just absorbing like everybody else what's happened in the last 24 hours."

He called it unlikely that a viable conservative would run as a third-party candidate. That would leave Steineke with the option of voting for Trump or abstaining from voting.



Steineke said he was focused on maintaining the GOP's majority in the Assembly and did not think the presidential election would have much effect on those races. He said he saw Clinton as an equally problematic candidate for down-ballot Democrats as Trump would be for Republicans.Leaving open the possibility he could support Trump is a change for Steineke, who on Twitter has used the #NeverTrump hashtag. He's called Trump a liberal and a liar and regarding challenges for Trump finding a running mate wrote, "If people knew the Titanic was going down, the Capt probably would have a hard time finding a 1st mate. #NeverTrump."

For his part, Fitzgerald waved aside the controversial statements made by Trump during the course of the campaign, including making Mexico pay for a wall on America's southern border, assassinating the family members of terrorists, and freezing the entrance of Muslim immigrants to the United States. Fitzgerald said that statements like those were "probably a little bit of showmanship" and that it was common for political candidates to make controversial claims.On Tuesday, Trump alleged without evidence that Ted Cruz's father was with John F. Kennedy's assassin shortly before he murdered the president, parroting a National Enquirer story claiming that Rafael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963."I think there's significant risks to Democrats to have Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket because of her ethical failings," he said. "They're in about the same position we are."

Fitzgerald could not point to another example of a candidate in a race linking the family of his or her opponent to an assassin.

Green Bay conservative talk radio show host Jerry Bader pointed to Trump's comments about Rafael Cruz as one more reason that he will never vote for Trump. Bader has also said he'll never support Clinton.

"(Donald Trump is) not fit to be president. It is what it is," Bader tweeted Wednesday.

A Cruz campaign spokesperson told the Miami Herald, which pointed out numerous flaws in the Enquirer story, that it was "another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage."

Martha Laning, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said Tuesday that Trump was a flawed candidate who was unfit to be president and incapable of winning Wisconsin. He was offensive to women and some Republicans, she said.

"This is the leader of the free world. He should have some class," Laning said.

Some Republicans have openly fretted that a Trump candidacy could spell disaster for down-ballot GOP candidates around the country, especially in battleground states like Wisconsin.

Fitzgerald said he saw things differently, noting that Trump did relatively well in the Fox Valley and western Wisconsin, the parts of the state that were most competitive in legislative and congressional contests.

"He's just a populist candidate and I'm fine with it at this point," Fitzgerald said.

Mary Spicuzza Of The Journal Sentinel Staff Contributed To This Report From West Allis.