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How Sanders won Michigan
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Presidential election in Michigan, 2016
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
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March 9, 2016
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders pulled off the biggest upset so far in the 2016 Democratic presidential nominating contest defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, he won 50 percent to Clinton’s 48 percent with less than two percent voting uncommitted.
Sanders’ campaign defied assumptions that he couldn’t win a large, diverse state and the pre-primary polls that showed Clinton likely to prevail in Michigan. With only a handful of precincts not reporting, Sanders won or was leading in 73 of the state’s 83 counties. Clinton carried the three largest counties in the state: Wayne, which includes Detroit, and Oakland and Macomb, the two big suburban counties just north of Detroit. She won Saginaw, five smaller counties, and had a narrow lead in Genesee, home to Flint.
But Sanders won everywhere else. Outside of Genesee, Sanders carried the southeastern counties that surround Wayne-Oakland-Macomb which include Washtenaw, home to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan, and Ingham, home to Lansing and Michigan State University. And Sanders once again did well among younger voters, winning them by about a four-to-one margin according to the television network exit polls. Clinton won voters over 40.
Sanders ran particularly well Southwest Michigan, which includes the industrial cities of Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. There is a campus vote in this area as well. Kalamazoo is home to Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College. There are some 15 institutions of higher education in the Grand Rapids metropolitan area. And Sanders bested Clinton in the north-central portion of the state and the Upper Peninsula.
In addition to an age split, there was also a racial divide in the Democratic primary vote. Almost three-out-of-five white voters cast ballots for Sanders while Clinton carried African-American voters by roughly a two-to-one margin. But unlike the Southern primaries where African Americans made up a larger share of the Democratic electorate, only about a quarter of the Michigan Democratic primary voters were African Americans.
Clinton has garnered the most endorsements from organized labor and she sharply criticized Sanders for not supporting legislation that included bailout funds for the auto industry, but that did not boost her with union members. Roughly one-third of the primary voters came from union households, and she and Sanders were essentially tied among that bloc. Sanders carried non-union voters.
In Michigan, Sanders emphasized his steadfast opposition to international trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement that President Bill Clinton strongly backed and Hillary Clinton once praised. The exit poll asked Michigan primary voters whether trade with other countries, “creates more U.S. jobs; takes away U.S. jobs” or “has no effect on U.S. jobs.” By a margin of almost two-to-one, Democratic primary voters said trade takes away jobs and Sanders handily won that group.
There was also a head versus heart aspect to the Democratic primary contest. Among voters who told the exit pollsters the most important quality in a candidate that most affected their vote, those who said “honest and trustworthy” overwhelmingly backed Sanders, as did those who said “cares about people like me.” Among those who said they wanted a candidate who “can win in November” or “has the right experience,” Clinton won by wide margins.
Michigan also has a history of producing presidential primary upsets, and this year that happened in the Democratic race.
But Clinton was not shut out in the balloting on March 8; she scored a 66-percentage point victory in the Mississippi. There African American voters comprised seven out of ten primary voters and they backed Clinton by a nine-to-one margin. Moreover, her victory in Mississippi kept her ahead in the delegate race. According to estimates by CNN, Clinton’s overwhelming margin in the state netted her a 25-delegate advantage over Sanders while his narrow upset in Michigan meant that he only picked up nine more delegates than Clinton did in the state. Sanders’ campaign will get a much-needed shot of momentum from his upset win, but Clinton still continues to win delegates, showing that it remains an uphill task for the Vermont Senator to overtake her lead.
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He is a member of the CNN Decision Desk and will be helping to project the Democratic and Republican winners throughout the election cycle.
See also
- Presidential election in Michigan, 2016
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
