Joe Biden won Super Tuesday last week, but Bernie Sanders has been here before: four years ago he was headed into the Michigan Democratic primary badly in need of a win to buoy his campaign — and got it.
Unfortunately for Sanders, this is 2020, not 2016, and his opponent is Biden, not Hillary Clinton.
Sanders scored the biggest upset of the 2016 primaries by beating Clinton after she took Super Tuesday, even though late polls showed him far behind.
This time, says Politico, “Sanders’ own weaknesses are about to be exposed,” which means winning Michigan will be much more difficult. The political website even suggested Biden could “blow Sanders out of the water.”
“Not only do party insiders expect Democratic turnout will spike among groups unfavorable to [Sanders] — blacks and suburbanites, in particular — but he now faces an opponent in Joe Biden who comes into the state with a head of steam, who benefits from Democrats’ desire to coalesce behind an alternative to Trump, and who will compete for independents and working-class whites in a way Clinton never did,” Politico says.
Michigan is especially important in light of its 125 Democratic National Convention delegates up for grabs, the biggest prize among the six states with primaries or caucuses on Tuesday. Even if Sanders doesn’t win, he must keep it close to prevent what the Washington Post calls a “delegate drubbing” and another serious blow to his chances.
The other Tuesday states are Washington, Idaho, North Dakota (caucuses) — and Mississippi and Missouri, where large African American voting contingents strongly favor Biden.
Michigan also has many black voters, especially in the Detroit area, and Biden has other clear advantages as well:
Older voters and suburbanites have been strong in their get-out-the vote numbers for the former vice president elsewhere; Sanders’ enthusiastic coalition of younger voters, not so much.
Super Tuesday exit polls indicated that Sanders’ support has eroded among the white working-class voters energized his 2016 run.
And Biden has picked up a lot of endorsements, from former opponents like Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and former mayors Pete Buttigieg and Mike Bloomberg (along with numerous others), and important Michigan figures, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Reps. Elissa Slotkin, Haley Stevens, and Brenda Lawrence.
A Detroit News poll released last week showed Biden with 29% support in Michigan, Sanders with 22.5%, Mike Bloomberg with 10.5% and Elizabeth Warren with 6.7%. Since then, of course, Bloomberg and Warren have dropped out of the race.
Confidence is showing in the Biden camp. Axios reports that some insiders are already discussing potential vice presidential candidates (probably a woman or an African American or both) and possible Cabinet members.
Still, nothing’s settled until the votes are counted. And that’s what Sanders is counting on.
