Sanders' win in Michigan = Game changer?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Sanders still has virtually no chance of winning the nomination, but his victory in Michigan seriously exposes Clinton's weakness as a general election candidate.  She is damaged goods who will not capture the white, energized, millennial base she will need.  Sure, America hates Trump, but not enough to show up and vote for Hilary Clinton.

There is nobody else. Trump would simply outsanders Sanders.

Sanders is better poised to take on Trump in GE than Hillary who is all but a conventional politician that has been around for a long, long, time.

Don't underestimate the current anti-establishment wave. Without it, neither Trump nor Sanders (for all other things dividing them) would be as strong now.

[beaver2.0]

March 6, 2016 was the day the peoples revolution came to fruition.

Seriously though, I think Sanders is going to win the nomination.

[ag]

Sanders still has virtually no chance of winning the nomination, but his victory in Michigan seriously exposes Clinton's weakness as a general election candidate.  She is damaged goods who will not capture the white, energized, millennial base she will need.  Sure, America hates Trump, but not enough to show up and vote for Hilary Clinton.

There is nobody else. Trump would simply outsanders Sanders.

Sanders is better poised to take on Trump in GE than Hillary who is all but a conventional politician that has been around for a long, long, time.

Don't underestimate the current anti-establishment wave. Without it, neither Trump nor Sanders (for all other things dividing them) would be as strong now.

Do not underestimate the conservatism of American electorate either. By imitating Trump, as Sanders would do, Dems would only succeed in offering an inferior "anti-establishment" option: Sanders will never talk about his penis.

[DrScholl]

Considering that Clinton has more than 1000 delegates and is halfway toward what she needs, Sanders has no chance at winning the nomination. He'd need to win big everywhere to catch up and considering that he barely won Michigan it doesn't see likely that he'll win big in the remaining large states.

[IceSpear]

1) He was supposed to win Michigan.

What data supports this claim? Demographics? With that logic, he should've won Massachusetts with all their white liberals. Instead Clinton was leading the polls by +20. Clearly Clinton is losing on the issue of trade, and she should watch out in Ohio and Pennsylvania. I think she's been over-relying on African Americans so far, and while she has cleaned up the South pretty nicely, it can't be her only solid voting base the rest of the way out.

Sanders can turn this around by making the Rust Belt states that are coming up super competitive, and then take the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest. Still though, North Carolina and probably Florida won't look too good for him in my estimation.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-doesnt-need-momentum-he-needs-to-win-these-states/

538 just gave Hillary over 99% of winning Michigan, and they projected a 21.3 point win for her, so they aren't exactly the ultimate authorities on this subject.

Okay, you can bash their forecast model if you want. But it doesn't change the fact that Bernie has very clear targets he needs to hit in order to catch Hillary in delegates.

If you disagree with their benchmarks, what would your benchmarks be?

[Ebsy]

Is there a single instance in democratic primary history where someone made up a 200 delegate deficit?

[Averroës Nix]

Dukakis must have recovered from quite a steep deficit in 1988, right? The fact that this is a two-candidate race limits the usefulness of that comparison, though. Even if Sanders eked out an improbable win among pledged delegates, he's in no position to bring the superdelegates to heel.

The Brown vs. Clinton phase of the 1992 contest, following Brown's upset win in Massachusetts Connecticut, is probably the best available comparison, though it's not a helpful one for Sanders except in terms of his ability to draw out the race through California.

[SillyAmerican]

Sanders still has virtually no chance of winning the nomination, but his victory in Michigan seriously exposes Clinton's weakness as a general election candidate.  She is damaged goods who will not capture the white, energized, millennial base she will need.  Sure, America hates Trump, but not enough to show up and vote for Hilary Clinton.

This sums it up nicely. HRC is a terribly weak candidate with way too many issues. Were I a Clinton supporter, I'd be really worried -- not about the strength of Sanders, but about the weakness of Clinton.

[Minnesota Mike]

He still has no chance, but this will keep him in the race a bit longer.

[Ogre Mage]

Is there a single instance in democratic primary history where someone made up a 200 delegate deficit?

That was my thought (and it actually is a deficit of about 215 pledged delegates right now).  As someone who watched 2008, Sanders has a very, very, very steep hill to climb with the delegate math under the proportional system used in the primary.  To the point where I would say it is most unlikely.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Brown vs. Clinton phase of the 1992 contest, following Brown's upset win in Massachusetts

Wait, didn't Tsongas win Massachusetts?

[Averroës Nix]

The Brown vs. Clinton phase of the 1992 contest, following Brown's upset win in Massachusetts

Wait, didn't Tsongas win Massachusetts?

Er, make that Connecticut.