Mark Halperin: Wisconsin Could Be 'Worst Night' for Clinton Since NH

Wisconsin could be a very "bad fight" for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and a win by Bernie Sanders in the Midwestern state could also hinder her chances heading into New York, Bloomberg Politics Managing Editor Mark Halperin said Thursday.

"She is coming back to the state, but she is not competing fiercely here and Sanders is," Halperin told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, where he is a frequent guest. "I think it will be a bad fight for her, maybe her worst night of the campaign since New Hampshire."

Clinton is having problems in Wisconsin, said Halperin, noting that her campaign is "suggesting the public poll that shows Sanders ahead by not much is off, that she's going to be beaten here, and maybe badly."

Halperin was referring to the latest Marquette Law School poll, which shows Sanders with a slight lead over Clinton.

"You'll have both front-runners, Trump and Clinton, favorites for the nomination, it looks like have losses here, maybe substantial losses, and they have two weeks of pain before they can win anywhere," said Halperin.

And, as the campaign shifts to New York, "Sanders will go into his home state, if he has a big win in Wisconsin, with a kind of momentum the Clintons don't want to see."

Chris Jansing, NBC's senior White House correspondent, commented that Sanders is leading Wisconsin's polls by 71 points with voters under the age of 30 and by 20 points among independent voters, and said Clinton's camp is playing down its expectations for the state.

"I talked to some of the Hillary Clinton folks here on the ground yesterday, [and] they're trying to play the expectations game," she said.

"They say, 'Well, we just want to do better than we did in 2008.' Well, in 2008, she lost 58 to 40 percent. Obviously, it's not nearly that close. So, they're trying to downplay expectations. There's obviously some nervousness here."

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