Michigan could be pivotal for Sanders to mount comeback Heidi M Przybyla , USA
TODAY The state of Michigan could be Bernie Sanders' last, best chance to
challenge Hillary Clinton's hold on the Democratic presidential race. The
Midwestern industrial state, which holds its primary Tuesday, is the ideal
audience
for Sanders' campaign message about "unfair" trade agreements, income
inequality and a "rigged economy. "This is ground zero for trade," said Rep.
Debbie
Dingell, D-Mich. "People are frustrated. It's been almost 15 years, and they're
not better off than they were," said the first-term Democrat, who is backing
Clinton. Yet Clinton has consistently led in polls a Monmouth University Poll
out Monday showed her up 13 points. "If he can't win in Michigan, where can
he win besides these small caucus states? said Susan Demas, publisher of Inside
Michigan Politics, a political analysis newsletter. Sanders campaign manager
Jeff Weaver is calling Michigan "a critical showdown. Mississippi also holds a
primary on Tuesday, and Clinton is favored there. The city of Detroit has
gone from one of the country's richest in the 1960s to one of the poorest. The
once-thriving automotive hub is pocked by blighted homes and crime and has
more children living in extreme poverty than any of the nation's 50 largest
cities. Manufacturing job losses devastated neighboring communities, sowing
more than 20 years of resentment among white, working-class Democrats over the
North American Free Trade Agreement. Sanders is hitting Clinton hard on
the trade issue, including a recent ad picturing abandoned homes and factories.
NAFTA was championed by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, though
the former first lady is trying to distance herself from a number of those
policies. Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman said the outlook for
Sanders is bleak. "The Democratic race is fundamentally over at this point," he
said, estimating Sanders would have to win three-fifths of remaining party
delegates just to draw even with Clinton. Delegate-rich states next up on the
calendar, including Florida, also favor Clinton. "Sanders is still in the
race to make the point, but it's not a close contest. Michigan will further
drive that point home," said Wasserman. After losing Southern primary states
with large black voter populations to Clinton as well as Massachusetts Michigan
is among Sanders' final opportunities to prove that his economic message
has broad appeal and that he can make inroads with minorities. Up to 30% of the
Democratic electorate is expected to be African American. According to
Demas, Sanders missed a critical opportunity in a Sunday night debate in Flint
to capitalize on his economic message by standing behind his vote against
a 2009 government bailout that many in Michigan credit for saving the
automotive industry and 4 million jobs. "It was always going to be difficult for
him to close the gap," said Demas. "His answer on the auto bailout was almost
disastrous. Sanders defended his vote by saying most of the money in the
bill went to Wall Street banks. "I will be damned if it was the working people
of this country who had to bail out the crooks on Wall Street," he said.
On Monday, Sanders clarified that he supported a $14 billion auto bailout until
it migrated into a Wall Street package, accusing Clinton of a "disingenuous"
attack to "deflect" attention from her own record on trade. Hillary Clinton
awaits the start of the Democratic debate in Flint, Mich., on March 6, 2016.
(Photo: Geoff Robins, AFP/Getty Images) Michigan could expose some of Clinton's
longer-term vulnerabilities. Some of the state's most powerful unions,
including the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, traditional
Democratic allies, haven't endorsed a candidate. Many union rank-and-file
backed her husband in 1992 and 1996 but are now supporting Sanders or
Republican front-runner Donald Trump. "She's also competing with Donald Trump,
who's
made this a strong issue and not backed down on the currency trade issue," said
Dingell. "There's a lot of pent-up anger, and Donald Trump let's them release
it," she said. Sanders may be indirectly helping Trump. At campaign rallies, he
has repeatedly slammed Clinton on trade, listing it as a key area where
they disagree. Sanders says he led opposition to NAFTA and permanent normal
trade relations with China, which he says resulted in the loss of millions
of middle-class jobs and "a race to the bottom. His campaign, in a March 3 news
release, dubbed Clinton the "outsourcer-in-chief. Clinton has been trying
to distance herself from the 1990s-era policy. In the Flint debate, she tried
to distinguish her record from that of her husband's. As a senator, she voted
against a Central American trade agreement, the only multinational pact that
came before her, she said. More recently, she's come out against the
Trans-Pacific
Partnership. Nearing closer to the nomination, Clinton has begun to discuss the
role Sanders would need to play in unifying the party. During a town hall
forum Monday in Grand Rapids, she talked extensively about how she encouraged
her voters to back Barack Obama in 2008. "I had a lot of passionate supporters
who did not feel like they wanted to support then-Sen. Obama. I worked as hard
as I could. I nominated him at the convention. I made the case, because
he and I shared a lot of the same views," she said. "We have differences, but
those differences pale in comparison to what we see going on with the
Republicans
right now," said Clinton. Clinton's supporters acknowledge a Michigan loss is
unlikely to deter Sanders. Several testy exchanges in the Flint debate
highlighted
festering tensions between the two, and Sanders is flush with campaign
donations to keep him going. "I think Hillary Clinton will win Michigan," said
Dingell.
"But I think Sen. Sanders plans on staying in this race for a while.
Contributing: Nicole Gaudiano
