BREAKING NEWS: SANDERS PROJECTED TO WIN WISCONSIN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

DEVELOPING ...

Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Beie Sanders were projected to win Wisconsin's presidential nominating contests Tuesday, disrupting Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's hopes of wrapping up the race any time soon.

On the Republican side, Fox News projects that Texas Sen. Cruz will defeat Trump in Tuesday's primary, slowing the GOP front-ruer's momentum after a rough week on the campaign trail for the New York businessman.

Vermont Sen. Sanders, in the Democratic race, was projected to notch his sixth victory of the last seven primaries and caucuses – also giving him significant momentum in advance of the New York primary in two weeks.

Early retus show Sanders with 57 percent to Clinton's 43 percent in the state.

The victory helps fuel Sanders' argument that the Democratic primary is far from over, even as front-ruer Clinton tries to tu her attention to the general election.

On the Republican side, early retus show Texas Sen. Cruz with 49 percent to Trump's 35 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich is trailing far behind.

Exit polls also showed Cruz enjoying his highest support of the campaign among evangelical Christians.

Exit polls in the Democratic race show Sanders won in part with the help of independent voters, who broke big for the Vermont senator.

While the Cruz and Sanders wins in Wisconsin won't necessarily lessen the odds against either wiing their party’s nomination, the losses by the front-ruers keep an aura of uncertainty hanging over both races.

Pressure will now be immense on both front-ruers to bounce back with wins in the April 19 New York primary, where Trump seems better positioned right now than Clinton, according to recent polls.

For Trump in particular, though, every loss – however slim – increases the chances he’ll fall short of the necessary 1,237 delegates to clinch the nomination and face a contested convention in July.

Cruz, enjoying the support of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, campaigned harder than anybody in the Midweste state. Buoyed by conservative talk show hosts and others opposed to a Trump bid, the Texas senator led in most GOP polls leading up to Tuesday’s primary.

For Trump, the long lead-up to Wisconsin's contest has included one of the worst stretches of his candidacy. He was embroiled in a spat involving Cruz's wife, which he now says he regrets, was sidetracked by his campaign manager's legal problems after an altercation with a female reporter, and stumbled awkwardly in Idea about abortion.

Still, Trump made a spirited final push in the state.

"If we do well here, it's over," he said. "If we don't win here, it's not over."

Complicating the primary landscape for both Cruz and Trump is the continuing candidacy of Kasich. The Ohio goveor's only victory has come in his home state, but he's still picking up delegates that would otherwise help Trump inch closer to the nomination or help Cruz catch up.

Trump has joined Cruz in calling for Kasich to end his campaign. But Kasich cast Trump's focus on him as a sign that he's best positioned to win over the businessman's supporters.

“The rule is 1,237 -- if you don’t get the 1,237 you can’t be picked,” Kasich said Monday. “What’s wrong with that process? What are we supposed to say? ‘Well, you almost got there.’ Almost got there is not what the rules say.”

For Republicans, 42 delegates are at stake Tuesday. If Cruz wins all of Wisconsin's 42 delegates, Trump would need to win 57 percent of those remaining to clinch the GOP nomination before the July convention. So far, Trump has won 48 percent of the delegates awarded.

Going into Tuesday’s primary, Trump had 737; Cruz had 475; and Kasich had 143.

For Democrats, 86 delegates were on the line Tuesday in Wisconsin. So far, Clinton has 1,243 delegates to Sanders' 980 based on primaries and caucuses. When including superdelegates, the party officials who can back any candidate, Clinton holds a much wider lead -- 1,712 to Sanders' 1,011. It takes 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.

On the eve of voting in Wisconsin, Clinton's campaign manager argued that Sanders' only path to victory "relies on overtuing the will of the voters." In a memo to supporters, Robby Mook wrote that Sanders' strategy now is "a combination of trying to flip pledged delegates at state and county conventions, while also convincing superdelegates that he deserves their support."

Sanders would need to win 67 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates to catch up to Clinton. So far, he's wiing 37 percent.

Even with Sanders' win in Wisconsin, he might not gain much ground. Because Democrats award delegates proportionally, a narrow victory by either candidate on Tuesday would mean that both Sanders and Clinton would get a similar number of delegates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.