In 2016, Bernie Sanders’ stunning Michigan upset against Hillary Clinton dramatically altered the course of the race just as some had begun to write him off.
Four years later, the Vermont senator returns to Michigan in dire need of another win. Offering 125 convention delegates – the richest prize among the six states to vote on Tuesday – Michigan is make or break after former vice-president Joe Biden swept into the lead last week.
While Sanders’ populist message resonated with Michigan’s white working-class voters in 2016, fear of four more years of Trump is now a top motivator for Democrats. Many believe that favors Biden, the choice of the party establishment and moderate voters, over Sanders, the self-proclaimed socialist who sits as an independent in the Senate.
The latest Michigan polls mirror others around the US and suggest the state is leaning to Biden. While Sanders led by as much as nine points in late February, a poll taken after Biden’s huge South Carolina win put Biden up by seven. On Monday the realclearpolitics.com polling average put Biden clear by a whopping 22 points.
Some Sanders supporters point out the senator has generally polled better than Biden in hypothetical match-ups against Trump in Michigan. But new polling out on Monday read the other way and Clinton also weighed in, telling CNN Sanders would not be the “strongest nominee against Donald Trump”.
Sanders has trained his sights on Michigan. Speaking to the Guardian, Detroit resident Kevin Allen, who voted for Sanders in 2016, insisted: “He’s working for it and Biden isn’t. His policies help Michigan. Biden’s don’t. It’s a new state and there’s been a lot of ups and downs in the race so far.”
Three groups of voters boosted Sanders in Michigan in 2016. He did particularly well with working-class whites, won a larger share of the black vote than expected and overwhelmingly won young voters, who turned out in high numbers.
In the days leading up this year’s contest, Sanders put together a “get out the vote” swing targeting those groups. It started with a Friday evening rally in Detroit, which is 80% black. As with elsewhere around the country, the senator is polling particularly well with younger African Americans. The swing also included a stop in Grand Rapids, a largely white, liberal city in western Michigan where Sanders won in 2016.
The campaign cancelled a Saturday rally in Jackson, Mississippi, and visited Ann Arbor, a young, liberal college town. It also added stops in Flint and Dearborn, a working-class city with a large Muslim population that is a stronghold of support.
Biden, by contrast, has only spent about $500,000 on TV ads in Michigan and among few stops in the state a fundraiser in Grosse Pointe, one of the wealthiest cities, stands out.
In 2016, in part, Sanders won Michigan because he was there much more than Clinton. His 2020 get-out-the-vote swing is “exactly what he needs to do”, said state congressman Yousef Rabhi, a progressive in Ann Arbor who endorsed Sanders.
“Bernie Sanders is showing up, he’s here on the ground … and you need to be here, be present to win,” Rabhi said. “He’s holding rallies, getting people who are young, old and from all backgrounds revved up and excited to vote for him.”
Critics also note that one of the few stops Biden has made in Michigan in recent years ended up helping an incumbent Republican defeat a Democrat in the 2018 midterms. The incident – in which Biden heaped praise on Fred Upton in a speech that was used in Republican ads – infuriated local party officials.
Sanders is seen as stronger on the environment and the only candidate to voice opposition to Line 5, a controversial oil pipeline that would run through the Great Lakes. He is also hammering Biden on his support for the Nafta trade deal, which many view as responsible for decimating Michigan’s working class amid mass factory closures. Clinton’s support for the deal was partly behind her losses here, and Rabhi said Biden’s votes on Nafta were also a serious liability, and would be in a contest against Trump.
However, said Michigan pollster Bernie Porn: “Trade doesn’t seem to have the same resonance in 2020.”
That seems backed up by the results of Super Tuesday. Biden won white working-class voters in eight states, a phenomenon that lifted him in Minnesota, which has a similar electorate. Sanders won Minnesota with 62% of the vote in 2016, but only got 30% this year. Porn noted that the failure of young people to turn out was partly responsible, and said reversing that trend was critical for Sanders’ hopes in Michigan.
“In just about every other state Bernie has come up short in terms of younger voters, so the question is, in Michigan, ‘Can he generate turnout among younger voters that he has not generated in most of the other states?’”
There are other variables. Elizabeth Warren has dropped out and that could bump Sanders’ support. However, the Massachusetts senator hasn’t endorsed anyone and some polling shows many of her supporters back Biden.
Still, Sanders’ base remains optimistic.
“There’s too much unknown to count him out in Michigan,” Allen said.
