In 2016, Michigan revived Bernie Sanders’s candidacy after a series of Super Tuesday losses. But four years later, the Democratic voters who helped Sanders win the Great Lakes state are nowhere to be found.
Sanders’s unexpected win in Michigan four years ago was an upset, and it was also an anomaly if current polling is accurate. One Detroit Free Press poll has Sanders trailing behind former Vice President Joe Biden by nearly 24 points. And the RealClearPolitics average shows Sanders winning 30% of Michigan’s vote, compared with Biden’s 55%. That’s a significant gap, and it hints that Michigan Democrats’ past support for Sanders was really just about their aversion to Hillary Clinton.
To understand why Sanders is losing support among Michigan Democrats, it’s important to establish why Sanders won them in the first place. His populist appeal had a lot to do with it. Sanders was able to win blue-collar support by tapping into anti-establishment frustration and discontentment. This also explains President Trump’s narrow win in Michigan in the general election.
But the dislike Clinton stirred in Michigan voters should not be understated, either. Even among Democrats, Clinton was deeply unpopular. She dismissed their concerns and came across as condescending. And after years of economic decline in the auto industry, Michigan voters were drawn to someone who cared — even if that someone was a socialist. So in many ways, a vote for Sanders was a protest vote against Clinton and the casual disregard she represented.
Now that Clinton isn’t on the ticket, Michigan Democrats feel less of an obligation to support Sanders, whose policies would undoubtedly unsettle the economic stability and growth they’ve enjoyed over the past four years. Biden is simply the safer choice.
Plus, Biden is able to connect with blue-collar workers in a way Clinton never was, and he offers familiarity and comfort. Indeed, Biden, more than any other candidate, understands Michigan’s economic revival. He helped negotiate federal loans to General Motors and Chrysler in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and he was “enormously supportive of Michigan when the state was down,” according to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who said he thinks “the state has a very personal connection to him.”
This personal connection has earned Biden the support of several unions, an achievement Biden has touted. But it’s important not to overestimate the unions’ current influence in Michigan. The state’s largest union, the United Auto Workers, just underwent a massive corruption scandal. Millions of dollars were embezzled, multiple officials have been charged with federal crimes, and the trust many union workers placed in their representatives has been broken, if only temporarily. And what influence the unions do hold will not be spent pushing members toward a candidate who would take away their private health insurance plans, increase their taxes, and increase federal regulation.
The problem is that Sanders needs Michigan. Without its 125 delegates, Sanders will likely lose the other Midwestern battleground states and, ultimately, the Democratic nomination. But the anti-establishment platform he’s pushing is no longer appealing, and neither is his promised “revolution.”
