You know it's a strange year when the GOP nominee for president refuses to endorse his party's speaker of the House in his own primary. Just as it looked like it would escape notice, Speaker Paul Ryan's primary in Wisconsin's 1st CD is getting a late burst of attention thanks to one tweet from Donald Trump. But don't expect Ryan to become the next Eric Cantor on Tuesday - in fact, the results could bolster the Speaker's standing. On Monday, Trump appeared to praise Ryan's primary opponent, water filtration businessman Paul Nehlen, and then declined to endorse Ryan in a subsequent interview with the Washington Post. Nehlen is a first-time candidate who calls Ryan a "soulless globalist" who favors "unlimited Muslim immigration," boasts the support of Michelle Malkin and Sarah Palin, and will hold a rally with conservative entertainer Ann Coulter on Saturday. A quick scan of alternative news sites and the Twitterverse can yield you thousands of die-hard Trump and Bernie Sanders supporters desperate to take down "traitors" and "sellouts," namely Ryan and Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23).
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