“Because it is the only contest that day, the Wisconsin primary could serve as a campaign reset,” said Republican strategist Rick Wiley, who ran Governor Scott Walker’s presidential campaign. “Republicans will be campaigning there for two weeks straight, and the result could serve as a major momentum boost.”

Through March, presidential campaigns were focused on clusters of contests — such as the many Super Tuesdays — when overall delegate count mattered more than anything else. But winning Wisconsin’s primary is not so much about the delegate count as the momentum it could induce (or halt) in the Republican and Democratic races for president.

The Wisconsin primary occurs deep in the presidential nominating calendar, nearly two months after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. But Tuesday’s primary may matter and function more like those initial nominating contests than the more recent primaries.


Republicans haven’t had a vote anywhere since March 22 (Arizona and Utah), and the party has been focused on the Badger State ever since. After Wisconsin, there isn’t another major contest for either party for another two weeks: The New York primary on April 19.

This means that if a candidate picks up any momentum in Wisconsin, it could stick with them for a while. After all, two weeks is longer than the eight days between the Iowa caucuses to the New Hampshire primary.

The campaigns have been pretty transparent about the role Wisconsin could play.

On the Republican side, US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Governor John Kasich of Ohio have made it clear they believe that denying Trump a win in Wisconsin could go a long way to denying the front-runner the delegates he needs to clinch the nomination before the GOP convention.

Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster who advises a super PAC working against Trump, said a Trump loss in Wisconsin would make the argument stronger that he could be stopped.


“I don’t speak for the Cruz or Kasich campaigns, but at this point, this is really about stopping Trump from getting the delegates he needs, and the one place where we are already seeing a turning point is Wisconsin, especially among Republican women who are really put off by what they see in the news,” said Goeas.

As for the Democratic contest, winning Wisconsin is essential to US Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

On a conference call with reporters earlier in the week, Sanders’ top campaign aide said the plan is to win the remaining contests and then convince super delegates to back them. They argue to super delegates — party leaders who can switch their votes up until the convention — that polls show Sanders performs better than Hillary Clinton against potential GOP opponents. They also cite his recent wins in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. But if he doesn’t win Wisconsin tomorrow, this will make the argument tougher — especially to those super delegates.

Conversely, if Trump or Clinton wins in Wisconsin, that could go a long way to bolster their arguments that their opponents have no chance of stopping them.

The latest polling in Wisconsin gives Cruz and Sanders an edge. A Marquette University law school poll showed Sanders leading Clinton, 49 percent to 45 percent. In the Republican contest, Cruz had 40 percent support, Trump had 30 percent, and Kasich had 21 percent.


And for Republicans, there’s one more wrinkle: How the delegates are selected in Wisconsin could mean less to the candidate who wins, especially if that victor is Trump. Northwestern University political science professor Daniel Galvin points out that in Wisconsin, unlike other states, the candidates do not select their eventual delegates for the convention. Instead, the party apparatus picks the delegates before the primary. The delegates are expected to follow the primary’s results — at least initially.

“This could matter greatly, should Trump not have a majority heading into the Republican National Convention,” said Galvin. “In balloting rounds after the first, those delegates he ‘wins’ in Wisconsin — if he wins — might have no qualms about abandoning him.”

More Capital coverage So on Tuesday, winning Wisconsin could be more about the argument candidates can make for the next two weeks, than it is about the delegates they can add at the national conventions.

James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell or subscribe to his daily e-mail update on the 2016 campaign at www.bostonglobe.com/groundgame