BREAKING NEWS: Cruz, Sanders projected to win Wisconsin primary

Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Beie Sanders were projected to win Wisconsin's presidential nominating contests Tuesday, dampening Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's hopes of wrapping up the race any time soon -- and putting heavy pressure on the front-ruers to recapture the momentum in contests later this month.

Both Cruz and Sanders charged out of the Wisconsin contest claiming momentum was tuing in their favor. Sanders, who has been on a wiing streak of late, with Wisconsin claimed his sixth victory of the last seven state contests.

“And we have won almost all of them with overwhelming, landslide numbers,” Sanders told an ebullient crowd of supporters Tuesday night.

Sanders was speaking in Wyoming, which holds a caucus contest this weekend. But the next big primary will be in New York on April 19, and Sanders has vowed to take on Clinton in her adopted home state.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also pointed to his win Tuesday as a sign the tides are tuing against Republican front-ruer Trump, who faced a rough week on the campaign trail going into the primary.

"Tonight is a tuing point," Cruz boldly declared at a rally in Milwaukee. "It is a rallying cry. It is a call from the hard-working men and women of Wisconsin to the people of America: we have a choice. A real choice."

Yet Cruz, despite wiing in Wisconsin and outmaneuvering Trump lately in the grueling battle for delegates, still faces challenging terrain in the weeks ahead. Trump has a clear lead in New York polls, ahead of the state's April 19 primary.

But Cruz's win only ups the odds that the Republican Party will be facing its first open convention in decades in July.

Trump, or any candidate, would need 1,237 delegate to clinch the nomination before then, and Cruz's victory Tuesday makes that more difficult for Trump.

Early retus show Cruz leading with 52 percent to Trump's 31 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was trailing far behind. Exit polls show Cruz won in part with significant support from evangelicals.

On the Democratic side, early retus show Sanders with 54 percent to Clinton's 46 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.

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.

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.

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.

For Republicans, 42 delegates were at stake Tuesday. If Cruz wins all of Wisconsin's 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.