Sanders stuns pollsters, Clinton with upset in Michigan

Nobody saw that coming.

Bernie Sanders pulled off his biggest win of the Democratic presidential race on Tuesday, defeating Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary on a night which also confirmed strong anti-establishment support for Donald Trump in the battle for the Republican nomination.

In an industrial state hit hard by the decline of manufacturing, the Vermont senator’s consistent opposition to free trade deals appears to have been a decisive factor, but he also showed signs of weakening Clinton’s dominance among African American voters.

The shock victory – 49.9%-48.2% with 99.3% reporting – comes despite Sanders trailing the former secretary of state by an average of 21 points in recent opinion polling.

538.com -- with the most egg on their faces and registering a much bigger loss than Hillary:

Bernie Sanders made folks like me eat a stack of humble pie on Tuesday night. He won the Michigan primary over Hillary Clinton, 50 percent to 48 percent, when not a single poll taken over the last month had Clinton leading by less than 5 percentage points. In fact, many had her lead at 20 percentage points or higher. Sanders’s win in Michigan was one of the greatest upsets in modern political history.

Both the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus and polls-only forecast gave Clinton a greater than 99 percent chance of winning. That’s because polling averages for primaries, while inexact, are usually not 25 percentage points off. ...

The question I am asking myself now is whether this means the polls are off in other Midwest 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.

The delegate math still favors Clinton.

To be sure, Clinton will emerge from Tuesday’s primaries with the bigger net gain in delegates. Her Mississippi landslide may have been more predictable than Sanders’ nail-biter in Michigan, but it was also more profitable. The latest estimates show that while Sanders will amass 8 to 10 more delegates than Clinton in Michigan, Clinton will scoop up 25 to 28 more delegates than Sanders in Mississippi. And so Clinton’s total delegate lead will only grow once all of Tuesday’s votes are tallied — despite Sanders’ miracle in Michigan. In the end, this is the only measure that matters.

Among the surprises from the Wolverine State is the statistical reveal that Bernie narrowed the gap with the demographic groups that have voted Hillary en masse.

Yet, more tellingly, Sanders also held his own among demographic groups that Clinton dominated in her 2008 battle against Barack Obama — demographic groups that could prove crucial in the contests ahead. He won white women by five points. He won whites without a college degree by 17 points. He won voters who make less than $50,000 a year by five points. He even won union voters (by two points). And he lost the black vote by a much smaller margin than he has in the South.

Wayne County, home to Detroit, was supposed to be her firewall but that theory got Berned, and there are more states like Michigan and fewer states like Mississippi ahead on the primary schedule. He must still begin claiming some Clinton-esque wins.

... 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.

Sanders, however, can breathe a deep sigh of relief that all the states in the Deep South have already voted. He can hope that tonight’s Michigan win will help propel him to victory or at least make him more competitive in states with large delegate prizes left like California, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. We’ll see if it does.

It might be the start of the political revolution, or it might be just one shining moment.  It could be the start of something yuuge, or it could be a flash in the pan.

On your teevee it's all about Trump. Turn it off.

Trump's ceiling, Cruz's rise, Rubio's last chance

The postulate that Trump's ceiling of support is somewhere between 35 and 40% has been, and continues to be, borne out by the polling and the results.  The latest:

Donald Trump’s facing a wall within his party, with Republicans who don’t currently support him far more apt to prefer Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio in a two-way race -- or even to favor a contested convention to block Trump’s nomination. 

Trump continues to lead in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, with 34 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents who are registered to vote saying they’d like to see him win the nomination. But he trails both Cruz and Rubio one-on-one. And preferences for Cruz, Rubio and John Kasich have grown as others have left the race, while Trump’s support has essentially remained unchanged for months.

Lots of in-the-knowers question the premise that Trump has a ceiling, or even whether it matters, but let's look at the numbers ... 

Iowa's caucus results were Cruz 27.6%, Trump 24.3 and Rubio 23.1.  Since that time -- just five weeks ago -- Trump finished first in NH with 35.3%, first in SC with 32.4, first in Nevada with 46.1, first in Alabama with 43.4, second in Alaska behind Cruz, 33.5 to 36.4%, first in Arkansas with 32.8, first in Georgia with 38.8 and in Massachusetts with 49.3, first in Tennessee with 38.9, first in Virginia with 34.7, and first in Vermont with 32.7%.

He lost Texas and Oklahoma to Ted Cruz by 26.7 - 43.8% and 28.3 - 34.4%, respectively, and he lost Minnesota to both Rubio and Cruz, ending third with 21.3%, and Puerto Rico by a mile, 13-71 to Rubio.  These last two represent Trump's low-water marks to date.

Last Saturday he lost Kansas and Maine to Cruz by wide margins, 23.3% to 48.2, and 32.6 to 45.9%, but won Louisiana and Kentucky with 41.4 and 35.9%.

Throwing out the high (Massachusetts) and the low (Puerto Rico) and averaging the remaining produces a 33.46 average percentage (even if averaging percentages is a substandard evaluation method, it tells us something).  The only way we'll know what the ceiling is for Trump is when the Republicans boil it down to two.  Delegate counts are a different story, and Trump leads Cruz by a 384-300 margin, with Rubio well back in third holding 150 delegates and Kasich, lapped a couple of times by the field, at 37.

Michigan and Mississippi both poll strongly for Trump, as does Idaho and Hawaii (no polling there) also voting today.  But the numbers are very consistent: 30% to 40% for Trump and the rest divided among the remaining field.  So there will be louder calls for mano y mano with Cruz tonight, and a week and a day from today, unless Rubio can win Florida in some kind of convincing fashion, and he will be coming from well behind to do so.

The GOP debate just ahead of the Florida primary happens Thursday night in Coral Gables, and Florida's devout Cuban-Republican contingent will be as riveted to the action as any.  Rubio will bear the brunt of the attacks from Trump and Cruz in a somewhat altered dynamic.  There may be some snarking at each other in Spanish (I sure hope so).

It's entirely possible that a week from tomorrow, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton are the last three people standing for the presidency.

Last night's town hall, Michigan votes today, and the debate Wednesday

-- The town hall format, with contestants questioned separately by the moderator and selected audience members, demonstrates again its superiority over both candidates' arm-waving and shouting from podiums.  There is no interrupting, hence there are no misused allegations of sexism (satire, yes; uncomfortably close to reality.  Not the virtual reality that dwells in the fevered minds of the SHills at Blu Koolaid Drinkers Revue).

Both candidates showed well.  Bernie stood out simply for his sincere and direct stands that go against the doctrine held by the average Fox viewer.  Hillary was grilled over Libya and her emails, as predicted, but emerged unscathed.  The Twitter responses ranged from the customary unhinged conservatives freaking out over soshulism or Benghazi or abortion -- a topic mentioned for the first time in a Democratic debate or forum -- to Republicans saying both Clinton and Sanders were their second choices after Trump, to the spinners for both blue sides working overtime.  It was one of the more diverse ideological event hashtags I've followed during this cycle.

-- Another stellar performance by him and another adequate performance by her is unlikely to move the needle in Michigan or Mississippi, both of which are casting ballots today.  There will be more calls for Sanders to pack it in when these states get called shortly after the polls close tonight, but with Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio all on deck to vote next Tuesday, no verdict will be rendered on his campaign's fate before then.

But it shouldn't be long after that.

Update: Mark Kleiman is ready to sign the death certificate.

-- Debate night is Wednesday in Miami with Amazon's Washington Post and Univision moderating.  The WaPo has made no secret of its Hillary bias.

The GOP get their own post coming up.

A bounce-back weekend for Bernie

But a last hurrah as well.

Sunday's debate brought a little more clarity to the state of play for the Democratic presidential nomination; our favorite mensch got the best of the exchanges between he and Hillary Clinton last night, and that dovetailed with the news that he had prevailed in the Maine caucuses, after winning two other caucuses -- Kansas and Nebraska -- on Super Saturday (Clinton won Louisiana's primary in a walkoff).  This continues the pattern of Sanders winning mostly Caucasian states that caucus (no pun intended), and Clinton running up large leads in Southern states that vote the usual way.

Sanders' good weekend is just not going to be enough.

While the crowd seemed to be with Bernie, and some punches were landed, he did not deliver the knockout punch many pundits said he needed to turn around his prospects for a Michigan primary win this coming Tuesday. 

RealClearPolitics.com’s most recent report of polling within Michigan shows Clinton leading Sanders by an average of 20%. While Michigan’s 148 delegates will be allocated proportionally, a loss of that magnitude would be devastating for Bernie. 

Enthusiasm may get a candidate votes; the right number of delegates gets a candidate the party nomination.

[...]

... short of a new scandal or the worsening of an already existing scandal, Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

More from Politico, including some unsolicited advice.

With Sanders now having won a total of seven primary or caucus contests to Clinton’s 12 (he lost even liberal Massachusetts, his neighboring state)—he is sailing into ever-more challenging electoral waters ahead. Party operatives have begun gaming out just how and when Bernie should say “when.” He doesn’t want to give up too easily. Nor should he stay on so long that he severely harms Clinton—now more than ever the likely nominee—in the fall. 

In his election night rally in Vermont on Tuesday, Sanders declared that his campaign was, among other things, “about dealing with some unpleasant truths that exist in America today and having the guts to confront those truths.” 

The big unpleasant truth is this: Sanders may have already changed things in this campaign as much as he ever will. By credibly challenging Clinton in the early days of the race, Sanders moved the needle—and Clinton herself—on the issues he cares most about, from trade to Wall Street regulation to expanded access to health care. If history is any judge, there is only so much more that Sanders could expect from a victorious Clinton, or that she would be willing to give him. It seems all but inconceivable that she’d choose him as her running mate ( he is too old, and too unpalatable to too much of the country). She would not offer him the one Cabinet post he might covet (say, Treasury Secretary?) and it’s unlikely he would trade his perch in the Senate for one she might proffer (say Labor or Health and Human Services). 

[...] 

At 74, Sanders knows this is it for him. He’s too old to run for president again, and his small-donor fundraising base makes him immune to the sort of establishment pressures that might induce a more typical candidate to drop out. (On Tuesday morning, his campaign announced he had raised $42 million from 1.4 million contributions, averaging $30, in February alone.) 

“At the end of the day, what does he care if he alienates Hillary Clinton?” asks Anita Dunn, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked on Bill Bradley’s ill-fated challenge to Al Gore in 2000. “He’s got an 80 percent approval rating in Vermont. He’s still going to be a senator, in a closely divided Senate, and if he walks out on the Democratic Caucus, he could cost them control, so he is pretty untouchable. But the real thing to think about is why he is running to begin with—which is his message, his belief that the progressive wing of the party was not going to be represented in the process if he didn’t run, and all that speaks to me of the place he may really want to use his accumulated delegates—that is, the platform.”

Read on there about the Democratic Party's past platform negotiations, the comparisons to Jesse Jackson's quixotic '88 bid, the conciliatory plum of a speaking slot in prime time during the convention, and ... that's it.  A little more unity hoo hah, and then "it's time to GTF on the bandwagon, you dirty hippies".

The same old song and dance every four years from our shitty corporate Democrats.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not falling for the banana-in-the-tailpipe, Kucinich/Jackson/Dean head fake any longer, even when it ultimately comes from Sanders himself.  No matter the hugs and kisses and browbeatings about the Supreme Court that will eventually replace things like this ...

@queenofdorkdom @PDiddie FUCK YOU Everyone, especially Bernie is blaming Hillary for everything her husband did. Guess that part is okay.

— Dakota (@doodlebug0) March 7, 2016

@PDiddie Bernie would be. He has perverse sexual fantasies. Can't imagine being in bed with that fuckhead.

— Dakota (@doodlebug0) March 7, 2016

That's what passes for the Clinton campaign's outreach today.

I'll pass on standing with folks like that.  At any time in the future.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance congratulates all the winners of last week's primary elections as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff explored the pros and cons of universal vote by mail.

Libby Shaw ,contributing to Daily Kos, argues that there are under-the-raar tactics taking place at election polls, at least in Harris County, that discourage voter turnout. The Texas Blues: The More Subtle Aspects of Voter Suppression.

Socratic Gadfly says RIP to Ponzi-scheming fracking grifter Aubrey McClendon and his apparent suicide by vehicle.

In an unrelated Ponzi scheme, the Lewisville Texan Journal reports that the FBI and SEC are investigating a Grapevine real estate investment trust after recent allegations of such.

So is Democratic turnout in primary elections to date up, or is it down? PDiddie at Brains and Eggs is asking for a friend.

This week's Texas primary went as expected for most races, but Texas Leftist was happy to see some history made as Democrat Jenifer Rene Pool became the first transgender candidate to win an election in Texas. With so much news dominated by Trump and Cruz, it's great to have some progress worth celebrating.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is sad to see the tuition at Texas public universities go up. Oligarchs pay low taxes and greedy lenders get more student debt payoffs. Republicans like the rich best.

Stace at Dos Centavos reviews his predicted wins and losses from last Super Tuesday.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston describes the process by which the people standing behind the candidate at political rallies are chosen.

Neil at All People Have Value visited the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

======================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Texans for Public Justice is keeping an eye on the TxPUC's $17-billion takeover of Oncor Electric, and how it benefits one of Greg Abbott's largest campaign contributors.

Tar Sands Blockade checks in after a hiatus with the recent inspection reports from KXL's southern leg revealing the falseness of TransCanada's claims about "the safest pipeline ever built".

Ashton Woods at Strength in Numbers tells the inconvenient truth about early voting.

The TSTA Blog reminds us that elections especially have consequences for education.

The Lunch Tray interviews Sen. Debbie Stabenow on child nutrition.

BOR pens a letter of greeting to the new Travis County GOP chair. And Newsdesk digs a few of the ads he's placed in the Austin Chronicle from their archives.

Grits for Breakfast laments the results of the Republican primaries for the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Better Texas Blog explains the Texas coverage gap.

The Makeshift Academic assures us there will not be a contested convention.

Finally, the TPA maintains neutrality in the breakfast taco wars.