For Bernie Sanders to remain competitive with Joe Biden in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, he’ll have to repeat what he did four years ago: Win the Michigan primary, Reuters writes.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Biden is showing strength with the same kinds of voters that Sanders, a U.S senator from Vermont, relied upon in his surprise defeat of front-runner Hillary Clinton in the state in 2016.
Sanders goes into Michigan badly in need of a win after former Vice President Biden seized control of the race on Super Tuesday this week, winning a bevy of Southern states as well as Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas and causing rivals Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren to drop out.
Michigan is the most competitive of the six states that hold nominating contests on Tuesday. It offers the largest number of the minimum 1,991 delegates a candidate needs to secure the nomination outright: 125. And it’s a critical moment for Sanders to try to recapture momentum before the contest shifts to Florida and Illinois the following week.
In addition to Michigan, Washington state, Mississippi, Miissouri and Idaho will be holding primary elections on Tuesday. North Dakota will hold caucuses.
A Sanders loss in Michigan could give Biden an insurmountable lead as the state-by-state nominating process moves into friendly territory for the man best remembered as No. 2 in President Barack Obama’s historic administration.
The state also greatly matters for Nov. 3 general election. It flipped Republican in 2016, voting for now-President Donald Trump over Clinton by just over 10,000 votes.
“Michigan is your got-to-win state,” said Adam Hollier, an African-American state senator from Detroit who is backing Biden.
Biden parlayed his popularity with black voters into huge gains on Super Tuesday, winning 70% of African-American voters in Alabama and Virginia and 60% in North Carolina and Texas, according to exit polls from Edison Research.
They will be crucial in Michigan, where they comprise almost 14% of the population. Some areas of Detroit are 80% African-American.
“When you look at what he did all across the South, those same demographics are going to be at play in Detroit,” Hollier said.
Sanders canceled plans to campaign in Mississippi this weekend, focusing instead on Michigan.
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