Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Hillary Clinton vs Bernie Sanders:

Ten Totally False Narratives Suddenly Coming Out Of Michigan

Now that Bernie Sanders has pulled off a shocking close victory in the state of Michigan when Hillary Clinton was supposed to have won it easily, pundits and media types are coming out of the woodwork to try to explain it. Narratives are flying left and right about what might have caused the upset, and what it means for the rest of the race going forward. As it turns out, most of these media narratives are false and easily disproven. Here’s a look at the eleven most popular claims about Michigan and the rest of the democratic race, ten of which are False or Mostly False:

“Democrats changed their minds at the last minute because of the final debate or trade deals or some other reason” __FALSE. Hillary won the registered democrat vote in Michigan by 16%. But three quarters of the registered independents in the state who voted in the democratic race voted for Bernie. No democrats changed their minds in Michigan. Bernie won because registered independents came out of the woodwork to take advantage of Michigan’s “open” system. Hillary’s popularity with democrats is still what it was.

“Tons of republicans voted for Bernie just to trip up Hillary”__FALSE. Last night, CNN reported on-air that just three percent of the people who voted in the democratic primary were registered republicans. That relative handful might have been enough to narrowly flip the state, but it doesn’t explain the nearly twenty point polling gap. The republicans weren’t the culprit in the Michigan democratic primary. The independents were.

“Democrats assumed Hillary was going to win Michigan, so they voted on the republican side just to mess with them” __TRUE. Seven percent of the people who voted in the republican primary were registered democrats. This is likely to stop, now that Hillary’s supporters can see they just cost her a state by assuming things.

“Bernie did well with the urban black vote”__False. Exit polls suggest Hillary got around two thirds of the urban black vote, meaning she’ll have major advantages in cities like Chicago and Cleveland.

“Hillary only won the day due to superdelegates” __False. While everyone was obsessing over Bernie winning Michigan by 2%, Hillary was simultaneously winning Mississippi by 66%. She won the majority of last night’s overall delegates across the two states because she won the majority of the overall popular vote. Democrats are awarded delegates in proportion to their margin of victory in every state.

“Independents can hand the nomination to Bernie”__ Mostly False. Four of the March 15th states are some degree of open or semi-closed, meaning independents may be able to make an impact – but not as much as they did in Michigan. And the fifth state, Florida, is fully closed. So Hillary will win the overall vote on March 15th easily, pulling even further ahead. And after that date, there are only three more open primaries remaining in the entire country. This was mostly a one trick pony.

“Michigan proves Bernie can make a comeback”__False. Michigan proves that even when Bernie has an unexpectedly ‘great’ day for himself, he falls even further behind in the race. He would need to win, on average, about 60% of the total vote going forward in order to come back. Last night he only got about 51% of the vote in his best state, and only about 17% of the vote in the state he lose. In other words, regardless of the headlines, last night put Bernie that much closer to being mathematically eliminated. And again, that’s before even looking at the superdelegates.

“Bernie is going to make his big comeback by winning California at the end”__False. Like all states, California awards its delegates proportionally. Demographics suggest that even if Bernie won California, it would be close. That means the delegates would be almost evenly split, as they were in Michigan. As the race goes on, close wins by the distant second place candidate only work in the frontrunner’s favor.

“Hillary is only winning red states, so she’s in trouble for the general election”___ False, and this is the most strangely nonsensical argument coming out of the Bernie camp to date. In the general election Hillary will win all the blue states, because the republican candidates have veered too far red. If anything, Hillary’s extreme popularity among blue voters in red states suggests she’ll be able to flip a few of the slightly-red ones in the general election as well.

“Democratic polls can’t be trusted going forward” – Mostly False. This is only true for the open primary states, and there aren’t many of those remaining. Hillary got exactly the percentage of registered democrats in Michigan that the polls said she would. So in closed primary states, where only registered democrats can vote to begin with, the polls can still be counted on to be accurate.

“The longer Bernie drags out his inevitable loss, the more it hurts Hillary in the general election” __ Unclear. Her strength was always going to be a majority coalition of the mainstream-left and the middle. She was never going to win the ‘purist’ far-left vote in the general election because those types have never seen her as being ‘pure’ to begin with. At worst, Bernie is costing her the votes of the minority of people on the left she was least likely to win over anyway, and frankly, they’re among the least likely people to bother voting in a general election period. If anything, a protracted primary process could help moderates more clearly see the numerous differences between Hillary and Bernie, settling their fears that she may be as ‘extreme’ as he is. And because the republicans are a scary fractured clown show this year, the moderates will be looking for an excuse to vote for Hillary. In a different year, Bernie might be hurting Hillary’s general election chances. Not this one.

March 9, 2016
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