Last night [March 8, 2016], Donald Trump took three states in the Republican contests, edging out his top establishment opponents, officially shaking up the GOP battleground once and for all.
While everyone’s eyes are still on the Right’s interesting race to the Republican nomination, the biggest shock of them all came with Bernie Sanders’s upset win in Michigan.
This victory completely contrasts the race we all witnessed last week when it seemed that primary results and top pundits had pegged this race as Hillary Clinton‘s.
The win was expected to be a clear path to victory, proving to everyone else that the Clinton campaign could succeed across all demographic sectors, and different parts of the country, but it seems Senator Sanders had different plans.
By the night’s end Hillary Clinton had claimed more delegates in Mississippi and Michigan combined than Bernie Sanders, but his win in Michigan means that this race is far from over and here’s why.
Following Michigan are a handful of industrial states with similar demographics, values, and issues. Assuming that Bernie Sanders keeps his message to the masses consistent with what he relayed in Michigan–populist economic focus and opposition of the free trade agreements–victories in states like Ohio and Illinois may not be too far off.
“The political revolution that we’re talking about is strong in every part of the country,” Sanders said in in Florida following the victory. “We believe our strongest areas are yet to happen.”
Even more interesting, his win in Michigan showed him doing better among African-Americans, winning 30 percent of the Black vote, the highest he’s ever done in any state.
But the fact still remains that with states like Ohio, Illinois, and Florida, contrary to the GOP contests, the states are not winner-take-all. The margin of victory is what plays the major role in Democratic candidates’ allocation of delegates.
Clinton’s sweep of the South gave her a lead of somewhere around 200 delegates–a lead that experts are saying Sanders won’t be able to move past unless he produces a dramatic win soon.
