"I mean business today," a Milwaukee woman identified only as Mrs. Taylor tells an official in the Department of City Development. "I've been put off long enough."

As Wisconsin heads into a hotly contested presidential primary election for both major parties, WPR has looked back at years when the state's voters played an important role in selecting parties' nominees.

The 2012 Republican presidential primary marked 100 years of Wisconsinites electing delegates to the major party conventions in open primaries — a system the state pioneered. That year's cycle also brought an increasingly rare spotlight to what is now a late-primary state.

When John F. Kennedy was making his ultimately successful pitch for the Democratic Party nomination in 1960, Wisconsin's April 5 primary was considered early. New Hampshire's was first, but candidates treated Wisconsin's as the first significant showdown.