MILWAUKEE — The Marquette Law School poll, released last Wednesday, shook up perceptions of the Republican presidential race here in Wisconsin. After weeks with no good data, Marquette found Ted Cruz with a ten-point lead over Donald Trump — a finding that was replicated by a Fox Business poll shortly after.

Then, as voting neared, two other polls showed the race closer, with Cruz up by just five or six points. Which would it be? "He might win by 12," one GOP operative not involved with either campaign told me, "and he might win by three."

He did better than that. On the strength of massive support in the talk-radio-fueled suburbs of Milwaukee, Cruz ran away with the Wisconsin primary, beating Trump by 13 points.

For days Cruz and his top surrogates, including Gov. Scott Walker, had been expressing the hope that Wisconsin would change the direction of the Republican race — specifically, that it would mark the beginning of the end for Trump. That seemed to come true Tuesday night. "Tonight is a turning point," Cruz told cheering supporters not long after the race was called. "It is a rallying cry. It is a call from the hardworking men and women of Wisconsin to the people of America — we have a choice, a real choice."

It was a blowout for Cruz — and Trump's worst defeat so far in the campaign. And while Wisconsin's 42 total delegates won't change the fundamentals of the race, the delegate news was good for Cruz, too. "A few weeks ago, we'd projected Trump to win 25 delegates in Wisconsin," wrote FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver. "It looks like he'll only get 3 to 6 instead." Cruz will get all the rest, leaving him with a gain of at least 36 delegates.

Cruz spent a significant part of his victory speech parsing the delegate count, with no development too small to mention. "Three days ago in Colorado, two congressional districts voted," Cruz said. "They elected six delegates. Of those six delegates, we won all six."

"I am more and more convinced that our campaign is going to earn the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination," Cruz continued. "Either before Cleveland or at the convention in Cleveland, together we will win a majority of the delegates..."

After Cruz's speech, some reporters tried to get campaign staff to elaborate on what he meant by winning "before Cleveland." Did Cruz really think he could win before the convention? Given that contests are coming in New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and other states that appear to be strong for Trump before the race turns to more congenial Cruz states like Indiana, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Oregon, Washington, and possibly California, does Cruz think he can lock up the nomination before the heading to Cleveland?

"We feel good about winning either before the convention or after the convention," Cruz communications advisor Jason Miller said, leaving the question as unanswered as it was before. "It's whoever can get 1,237."

Before Cruz can benefit from many hoped-for wins, it's likely he will hit a point where it is mathematically impossible for him to get to 1,237 before the convention. There will no longer be even the rhetorical prospect of winning outright before Cleveland.

That's fine with Cruz supporters. I talked to several at Tuesday night's event, and no one had a problem with trying to lure Trump delegates to Cruz at the convention. "The rules are in place," said Ann Stokes, a volunteer with the Cruz "Strike Force" who came to Wisconsin from her home in North Carolina. "I'm OK with the rules. I think a lot of the voters are having buyer's remorse anyway — they're surprised to see things that they didn't know about Trump. I think some of the delegates are ready to bolt."

The question that will be debated in coming days is whether Wisconsin really changed the race. It undoubtedly was a huge victory for the #NeverTrump forces, but was that the result of particular circumstances in Wisconsin, or was it the result of Trump beginning to lose altitude nationwide on the way to ultimate defeat?

Team Cruz believes the former. "Donald Trump has hit a brick wall," said Jason Miller. But other analysts point out that Wisconsin, by dint of its demographic characteristics, like education, religion, and culture, was always going to be a tough road for Trump — even before Trump shot himself in the foot on a regular basis in the campaign's final days. "[Trump's] problem in Wisconsin is mainly about the state's demographics, not self-inflicted wounds," wrote New York Times numbers cruncher Nate Cohn the day before the election. "Even a ten-percentage point loss [in Wisconsin] wouldn't necessarily indicate any shift against him."

As it turned out, Trump's loss was bigger than ten points, indicating that in Wisconsin he might have suffered both from a tough demographic challenge and the effects of his own missteps. The question is whether Trump can now recover in those states that are better suited for him, and wind up close to the number of delegates needed for the nomination, or whether he has done so much damage to himself that his problems multiply going forward.