Democratic voters in Mississippi and Michigan went to the polls on Tuesday to choose whether they want Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders to be their party's nominee in the November general election.Mississippi was no surprise. Hillary Clinton won big there as expected, and will walk away with most of that state's delegates.
The surprise of the night was in Michigan. Most polls had Hillary Clinton winning that state, but Bernie Sanders did very well there -- and thanks to proportional allocation of delegates, Sanders and Clinton will pretty much split the delegates in Michigan. Sanders did win the state, but by only a 2 point margin.
Sanders and his supporters can justifiably be proud of their strong showing in Michigan. But like last weekend, this is more of a moral victory than a real one -- because Clinton's strong showing in Mississippi will insure she wins the majority of the delegates decided on Tuesday.
Here are the results for Tuesday night:
MISSISSIPPI
Clinton...............181,978 (82.6%)
Sanders...............36,249 (16.5%)
MICHIGAN
Clinton...............549,922 (48.0%)
Sanders...............573,337 (50.1%)
And here is the latest delegate count:
Clinton...............1220
Sanders...............571
I am shocked by Michigan. I had come to terms with Sanders losing. As I wrote a whole lot over the last month: Sanders made Clinton, the Democratic Party, and America stronger, and he should be proud. I still think Sanders is basically dead. But if the polls were so far off in Michigan, it makes wonder if Sanders is starting to get some traction among the African American community. But we'll see. My big concern about that possibility is that if Sanders does take off, he could end up losing because of the superdelegates. And that would be bad for the party. If she wins, I want her to do it without them. I still expect that to happen.
ReplyDeleteMichigan was a surprise, but Clinton still won the Black areas (like Detroit) -- and she won the most delegates on the night. I expect she'll have a good next Tuesday.
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