Hillary Clinton was expected to sail to an easy victory in Michigan on Tuesday. Instead, she suffered a narrow, stunning loss that has the potential to further slow her progress to the Democratic nomination.
Even with the Democratic front-runner leading by 20 points or more in most polls, Bernie Sanders and his team insisted that a win was possible. And, leaning hard on his opposition to trade deals and Clinton’s past support of them, he eked out a win. While it won’t go far toward bridging her overall pledged-delegate lead, the victory-as well as polling debacle that failed to predict it-offered warning signs for Clinton in the midwestern states next up on the primary calendar.
With the Michigan loss-by less than 2 points with 99 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press-Clinton was able to go to sleep Tuesday with a bigger overall lead than she had when she woke up, helped by an overwhelming win in Mississippi.
Still, the symbolism is there: after candidates clashed on the debate stage over Clinton’s claim that Sanders’ vote against the Troubled Asset Relief Program also constituted a lack of support for the 2009 bailout of the auto industry, and spent most of the past week campaigning in the same state, Sanders won and Clinton lost. Now, voting in delegate-rich Illinois, Ohio, and Florida is just a week away.
“I am grateful to the people of Michigan for defying the pundits and pollsters and giving us their support. This is a critically important night. We came from 30 points down in Michigan and we’re seeing the same kind of come-from-behind momentum all across America,” Sanders said in a statement Tuesday night. “Not only is Michigan the gateway to the rest of the industrial Midwest, the results there show that we are a national campaign.”
As for the Republican race, Donald Trump extended his overall delegate lead by winning both Mississippi and Michigan.
Public polling showed Clinton with a 20-point lead over Sanders, though her aides began cautioning last week that internal polling suggested a much tighter race and her schedule suggested that her team was feeling pressure. “We always told you all that the polls were a lot closer” than public numbers suggested, communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters as the initial results showed a tight margin.
In Michigan, Sanders benefited from an open primary in which seven in 10 independents voted for him, according to exit polls. They made up 28 percent of voters. Clinton had a 57 percent to 41 percent edge over Sanders among the Democrats who made up 69 percent of those who voted.
Those numbers may not bode well for Clinton next Tuesday, when Ohio and Missouri hold open primaries, and Illinois and North Carolina allow voters to request Democratic ballots on primary day. Only Florida, with 246 delegates to the Democratic convention-the most to be awarded from a single state since the start of primary season-has a closed primary, and Clinton appears poised to win there.
Clinton visited Flint just before the New Hampshire primary at the invitation of the city’s mayor, Karen Weaver, who later endorsed the former secretary of state, but didn’t return to the state again until last week. She spoke Friday on corporate taxes and trade from the factory floor at auto parts maker Detroit Manufacturing Systems, and spent the weekend and Monday in the state, including signing on at the last moment for a town hall appearance on Fox News Channel.
Sanders, meanwhile, made several trips to Michigan in the past few weeks, spreading his populist message of reducing income inequality and promoting universal healthcare and free college tuition beyond Detroit proper at large rallies in Ypsilanti, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, Traverse City, Dearborn, and Ann Arbor. He also held a community meeting in Flint late last month to discuss the city’s water crisis.
Speaking after Clinton gave her primary-night speech in Cleveland and before it was clear where the final balance would lie, Palmieri said that the makeup of the electorate gave Sanders an edge. “Demographically Michigan looks a lot like states that Senator Sanders does well in,” she said.
Exit polls showed that 68 percent of those who voted in the primary are white, and that they went for Sanders 57 percent to 42 percent. “That’s always coming in at a disadvantage for us in the primary.”
Both campaigns say they’re on a strong path toward the March 15 primaries and beyond.
“We feel going forward she’s got a great economic message to sell in Ohio and Illinois,” Palmieri said, and Clinton is doing well in North Carolina and Florida.
Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver sees his candidate’s strength coming after next week. “After March 15, in particular, it gets incredibly strong for us, and I think what you’ve seen now is people said, ‘Bernie Sanders can’t win in a large industrial state’ or ‘a large diverse state,’ and you know what, it’s just not true,” he said.
While exit polls showed Clinton won the African-American vote in Michigan, Sanders did much better Tuesday with those voters than he had in states across the south, earning 30 percent support.
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