Thread by @PJverhagen

Results are in for #MiniSuperTuesday !

Michigan: Biden +16
Washington: Uncalled +0.2 Sanders
Missouri: Biden +25
Mississippi: Biden +67
Idaho: Biden +6
North Dakota: Uncalled +6 Sanders

So what does this mean going forward?

Lets break it down using the exit polls

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1. The primary is pretty much over

It looks like Michigan might be the nail in the coffin for Sanders. In 2016 it was his return from the brink, this year it pushed him over the edge. But why is it that absolute?

Because primaries are not winner takes all. 2/

Lets start by looking at how the primaries are run on the democratic side.

First and foremost, delegates are apportioned proportionally. This is different than the GOP. In 2016 Trump ran away with the nomination with some 40-45% of the vote in early states 3/

That strategy doesn't work for democrats. See the linked tweet for an excellent breakdown by @SteveKornacki on how that works.

Now lets suppose that Biden and Sanders were even on delegates, what would the race look like then? The answer is 4/

that it still not good for Bernie. The next cycle of the primary would be Arizona, Florida, Ohio, and Illinois. None of these states are good for Sanders and the rest of the calendar doesn't look much better.

Odds are that Bernie will drop out before the next debate 5/

He could also be stubborn and go for the debate and see if he can turn it around on the 17th.

In 2016 the primary was very long and bruising and it led to a damaged nominee and eventually president Trump.

2. Biden is strong among white voters

Michigan is one of those 6/

crucial firewall states the democrats lost in 2016. It has a large black population that needs to turn out, and its an industrial mid-western state with a lot of older white voters that used to work in manufacturing.

Clinton lost the state because the black vote was down 7/

and because Trump won white male non-college voters by 62%. This made up 42% of the MI electorate in 2016.

This is also precisely the group that Biden is strong with, moderate, white, older, and middle class. This, more than anything else, is why Biden is a strong 8/

opponent to Trump. These are the infamous Obama-Trump voters. Clinton couldn't win these because she was seen as elite and coastal, and because gender dynamics had a big impact.

Biden is strong among voters that Trump needs, and Sanders is strong among unlikely voters 9/

White, male (also Latino), below 30.

3. Sanders under performs

Biden wins reliable voters that always turn out, Sanders wins unreliable voters that are energized but often don't turn up when you need them. For example, in 2016 19% of the 10/

electorate nationally was below 30 years old. The remaining 81% is 30+.

Sanders has actually under performed his % of the black vote since last time. In 2016 he got beaten badly among black voters, this year it was even worse. In fact, Sanders has not beat his 11/

past results in any state thus far except for Nevada. This indicates that support for Sanders in 2016 was more really opposition to Hillary Clinton.

You also see this in the rural-urban divide. Sanders won many of the rural and conservative counties in 2016, which makes 12/

no real sense. Why would a super-liberal, democratic-socialist win those counties? Because those counties were most opposed to Clinton. We also see that in 2020 those counties went back to Biden.

To conclude, all of this effectively means the primaries are over. The 13/

delegate math is not there for Sanders, and the breadth of this coalition is not adequate to turn it around later. That means that the next steps will be the unifying of the Democratic party behind the presumptive nominee and starting to gear up for November.