Well, Bernie got his first quality narrative changing shocking upset of a win in Michigan last night. All his prior wins could be discounted in one way or another: caucus states, states close to Vermont, states that were overly white and liberal electorates. Michigan is the first state that is nearly identical to the demographics of the nation as a whole where he won. Sure, it’s a very narrow win, and sure, Hillary actually won the delegate count, both in Michigan and throughout the night, thus expanding her almost insurmountable lead, but a win is a win. And you need wins, especially the unexpected shocking upsets kind of wins to change narratives and momentum, and campaigns are all about narratives and momentum. So for the last two weeks, I have been crowing about Hillary’s success, so Bernie supporters, feel free to crow here about his success last night. Hey, if Hillary had won Michigan, I would have been saying the race is over. Remember what Chris Bowers said yesterday, that Bernie needed to win Michigan. He did. Celebrate it if you feel that rash commonly referred to as the Bern.
Tomorrow, we will begin to talk about whether this win changes the course of the race.
Florida—CNN/ORC–Trump 40, Rubio 24, Cruz 19, Kasich 5
Florida—CNN/ORC–Clinton 61, Sanders 34
Ohio—CNN/ORC–Trump 41, Kasich 35, Cruz 15, Rubio 7
Ohio—CNN/ORC–Clinton 63, Sanders 33
Florida—Quinnipiac–Clinton 62, Sanders 32
Ohio—Quinnipiac–Clinton 52, Sanders 43
Florida—News 13/SurveyUSA–Trump 42, Rubio 22, Cruz 17, Kasich 10
Florida—News 13/SurveyUSA–Clinton 61, Sanders 30
Illinois—Chicago Tribune–Trump 32, Cruz 22, Rubio 21, Kasich 18
Illinois—Chicago Tribune–Clinton 67, Sanders 25
National—NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl–Trump 30, Cruz 27, Kasich 22, Rubio 20
National—NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl–Clinton 53, Sanders 44
National—ABC News/Wash Post–Clinton 49, Sanders 42
National—Washington Post/ABC News–Clinton 50, Trump 41
“Clinton enjoys significantly stronger support among Democrats than Trump does among Republicans. It is probable that more Republicans would rally behind their nominee by the time of the election, as has been customary in recent contests, but the strong opposition to his candidacy inside the party could make the task of unifying the GOP more difficult than usual.”
Who the hell knows if these polls are accurate. Hillary had a 15 to 20 point lead in Michigan too. I think the polls were wrong for two reasons: 1) stupid Hillary supporters were complacent and either stayed home or voted in the GOP primary, as 7% of the GOP electorate was Democratic, and there is reported anecdotal evidence that this occurred according to Joy Reid and Dave Weigel and others; and 2) they under-sampled independents voting in the primary. According to he exit polls, Hillary won Democrats 57-41, which is very much like what the polling showed. But Bernie won the Independents 70-30.
So next Tuesday is Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio and Illinois. Sanders has to win Missouri, Ohio and Illinois to just keep pace and start to make up ground. If he doesn’t, this race reverts back to what it was before Michigan.
So conservatives are having a temper tantrum again because President Obama is not attending Nancy Reagan’s funeral. It’s funny that they should be so upset, since Presidents rarely attend the funerals of former First Ladies, no matter the party of either: From Addicting Info:
For instance, President Clinton did not attend Pat Nixon’s funeral in 1993 and President Bush did not attend Lady Bird Johnson’s funeral in 2007. President Obama also did not attend Betty Ford’s funeral in 2011.
Jimmy Carter didn’t attend Mamie Eisenhower’s funeral in 1979 and Franklin D. Roosevelt did not attend Lou Henry Hoover’s funeral in 1944.
And if conservatives seriously want to refer to Obama as “President Petty,” they should know that Ronald Reagan did not attend Bess Truman’s funeral in 1982, and keep in mind that she was First Lady when her husband President Harry Truman ushered in the end of World War II by ordering the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and was the longest lived First Lady in American history.
As far as I have been able to research, the only First Ladies whose funerals have been attended by a sitting President in the last 70 years was Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962 and Jacqueline Kennedy in 1994 by President John F. Kennedy and President Bill Clinton respectively.
Roosevelt had wanted a small private funeral but Kennedy attended anyway because at the time of her death, Eleanor had been known as the beloved First Lady of the World who served as First Lady during the Great Depression and World War II and is still the longest serving First Lady in American history. Jacqueline Kennedy brought grace to the White House and became a symbol of strength for a traumatized nation after the assassination of her husband in 1963. President Clinton attended her funeral because he was a friend of the family and even delivered remarks at the burial.
The winners and losers in Vox’s Winners and Losers column following election events is pretty obvious. The winners are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The losers are Hillary Clinton, #NeverTrump, and Marco Rubio.
It’s important not to overstate Clinton’s woes. Before tonight, she was nearly 200 pledged delegates ahead of Sanders, with over 58 percent of those allocated to date. She is absolutely demolishing him with superdelegates. She’s winning the popular vote. She’ll net more delegates tonight. She’ll probably win the nomination.
But tonight still suggests it could be a long slog à la 2008, with Clinton playing Obama and Sanders playing ’08 Clinton. The losing candidate is winning just often enough to keep raising money and motivating volunteers. As long as that’s happening, Clinton can’t pivot to the general election, no matter how faint Sanders’s chances eventually get.
This dynamic is exacerbated by the frontloading of Southern, Clinton-friendly primaries, and the backloading of Midwestern and Rust Belt states where — between Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota — Sanders does quite well for himself. Of the March 15 primaries, Florida and North Carolina are probably safe bets for Clinton, but Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri are now up in the air.
Then there’s Arizona and Utah — about which, who knows? — and the Idaho caucus, where, based on Sanders’ past caucus success, he’s probably the favorite. Same for Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington on March 26 after that. Then there’s the traditionally labor liberal Wisconsin, which could be prime Sanders country. The rest of March just isn’t super-friendly terrain for Clinton.
Again, she’s probably going to win. But just like 2008, it’s going to be a much longer primary season than she was prepared for.
Joe Scarborough: “Trump’s big wins in Michigan and Mississippi were not the worst news of the night for the GOP ruling class. Instead, that dubious distinction was saved for the complete collapse of Rubio’s campaign one week before Florida’s crucial primary. For Republican leaders, Rubio’s timing could not have been worse.”
“Florida’s winner-take-all primary was rigged by the establishment to provide a firewall for Jeb Bush or Rubio back when wise men spoke knowingly of an ‘establishment lane.’ Instead, as with most of the maneuvers masterminded by the Republican National Committee, the Florida firewall now seems to be playing into the hands of the man Beltway Republicans hate the most. And after tonight, the only politician who has any chance of stopping Trump seven days from now is the second-most hated politician in Washington, Ted Cruz.”
Good news for Democrats in Kentucky, as the result of 4 special elections have resulted in the Democrats gaining control of the state legislature.
“On a huge night for Kentucky Democrats, the party ran to victory in three out of four special elections, strengthening its hold on the Kentucky House of Representatives,” the Lexington Courier Journal reports.
“Democrats called it a repudiation of Gov. Matt Bevin and his policies, which they say are too extreme. Bevin had campaigned for the four Republicans and raised money for them.”
This was a bad night for Hillary Clinton. On a related note she won the most delegates this evening
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) March 9, 2016
The campaign in a nutshell. Bernie needs to win the remaining states, all of them, by a margin of 70-30 to win the nomination. Remember 2008 and Delegate Math. As of this writing Hillary gets 87, Bernie gets 69 from the day, a gain of 18 delegates for Hillary. So bad night for her, but she actually expanded her lead.
Trump keeps winning primaries but not sure everyone realizes how bad his numbers are in the general. ABC/WPost poll: pic.twitter.com/ViF96TMUwW
— Nick Gourevitch (@nickgourevitch) March 9, 2016
Going into this primary day, I speculated that Michigan might test whether the Democratic contest would be almost entirely about demographics — like the 2008 Obama/Clinton battle — or might be reshaped by ideological and policy differences. Clinton and Sanders did a lot to differentiate themselves from each other in their last debate, and in their Michigan messaging.
However, I would not be so quick to assume, as a lot of the pundits are doing tonight, that Sanders’s emphasis on Clinton’s support for trade agreements and/or labor anger at her mischaracterization of Sanders’s position on the auto-industry bailout gave him some sort of white working-class bonanza. Clinton actually won non-college-educated voters in Michigan, the state just wasn’t as demographically charmed for her as was generally thought. Still, that’s concerning for Clinton.
Clinton’s still ahead in the delegate count, and it still seems likely that she’ll ultimately win the nomination. However, while Clinton signaled in the past few days that she’s ready to wrap up the primary race and focus on Donald Trump, now it looks like her primary slog with Sanders will continue.
On Twitter, Slate’s Jamelle Bouie argued that’s something all Democrats should be celebrating:
It means more media attention for what is a largely civil and responsible race for the Dem nomination.
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) March 9, 2016
The question I am asking myself now is whether this means the polls are off in other Midwestern states that are holding open primaries. I’m talking specifically about Illinois and Ohio, both of which vote next Tuesday. The FiveThirtyEight polling average in Illinois gives Clinton a 37 percentage point lead, while the average in Ohio gives her a 20 percentage point lead. If Michigan was just a fluke (which is possible), then tonight will be forgotten soon enough. If, however, pollsters are missing something more fundamental about the electorate, then the Ohio and Illinois primaries could be a lot closer than expected.
Either way, this result will send a shock wave through the press. Heck, I’m a member of the press, and you might be able to tell how surprised I am. This will likely lead to increased news coverage of the Democratic race, which Sanders desperately needs in order to be competitive next Tuesday and beyond.
Sanders must rack up big wins, and fast. Thanks to an 83 percent to 16 percent win in Mississippi, Clinton gained in the overall delegate count on Tuesday and leads Sanders by more than 200 pledged delegates. Her strong performance in Mississippi also put Sanders further behind his FiveThirtyEight delegate targets. That may not be as sexy as the tremendous upset in Michigan, but math is rarely sexy.
Donald Trump celebrated some of his “successful” businesses at his victory speech informercial last night but Mashable finds he lied about most of them.