Michigan Primary Results: Bernie Sanders Stuns, Donald Trump Wins Handily

Updated at 8:27 a.m. Eastern Time

DETROIT, MI – Bernie Sanders dealt a crushing blow to Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s Michigan presidential primary, cutting into her support among African-American and blue collar workers in the Rust Belt and eeking out a shocking victory, 50 percent to 48 percent.

On the Republican side, billionaire businessman Donald Trump won the Great Lakes State by almost 13 points, following up on big win in Mississippi, where he collected another 20 delegates.

Trump will split Michigan’s allocated 59 delegates with Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who have been see-sawing for second and third place as the final votes come in.

REPUBLICANS (99.38 percent of precincts reporting)

Donald Trump: 36.51 percent

Ted Cruz: 24.92 percent

John Kasich: 24.29 percent

Marco Rubio: 9.35 percent

DEMOCRATS (99.4 percent of precincts reporting)

Bernie Sanders: 49.87 percent

Hillary Clinton: 48.32 percent

The close finish in Michigan’s Democratic primary sends important psychological messages to both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns.

In a statement issued early Wednesday, Sanders said:

“I am grateful to the people of Michigan for defying the pundits and pollsters and giving us their support. This is a critically important night. We came from 30 points down in Michigan and we’re seeing the same kind of come-from-behind momentum all across America.

“Not only is Michigan the gateway to the rest of the industrial Midwest, the results there show that we are a national campaign. We already have won in the Midwest, New England and the Great Plains and as more people get to know more about who we are and what our views are we’re going to do very well.”

Sanders, who hasn’t done well with minority voters in Southern primaries, refused to abandon the state where Clinton had been expected to maintain her so-called “firewall” of support among African-American voters.

The Democratic socialist has hit Clinton hard on her support for trade deals, which hurt her in the Rust Belt where agreements like North American Free Trade Agreement have cost jobs, as well for a a false representation of Sanders' position on the 2009 auto industry bailout.

A Clinton campaign aide told CNN the former secretary of state didn’t underestimate Sanders, but misunderstood the electorate. After an impressive win in Mississippi Tuesday, the Clinton campaign is emphasizing that she carried the night in delegates. She picked up 28 in Mississippi, compared with 1 for Sanders. In Michigan, 148 Democratic delegates are it stake, and they could be evenly split.

At his hotel in Florida, Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN he thinks Clinton’s characterization of Sanders’ position on the auto bailout issue backfired, fueling voters’ suspicions that Clinton wasn’t playing it straight with them.

Republican insurgent candidate Trump's victory in Michigan comes after an outcry by party elites, including Michigan native Mitt Romney, who eviscerated him as a “con man” who will lead diminish America’s standing in the world and lead the country into economic recession.

Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, brought his anybody-but-Trump campaign to his home state in a recorded phone message paid for by Rubio’s campaign.

“I believe these are critical times that demand a serious, thoughtful commander-in-chief,” Romney said in the message, which can be heard on The Detroit News website. “If we Republicans were to choose Donald Trump as our nominee, I believe that the prospects for a safe and prosperous future would be greatly diminished.

“And I’m convinced Donald Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton. So please vote tomorrow for a candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton and who can make us proud.”

Trump said in a victory speech that he is the “biggest story in politics,” that those who try to take him down only increase his popularity with voters and that anti-Trump ads were “38 million dollars worth of lies.”

“We have Democrats coming over, independents coming over, and with all of these people coming over, we’re going to have a hard time,” he said.

“There’s only one who did well tonight,” he proclaimed. “Donald Trump.”

See Also

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Candidates spent a final day before the primary trying to cut into the the frontrunners’ leads.

Sanders stepped up his rhetoric against Clinton in Sunday night’s debate in Flint, casting her as an establishment candidate who is too cozy with Wall Street investors.

He continued to hammer on the former former secretary of state on trade positions, saying her support of the North American Free Trade Agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership have decimated the middle class.

In Dearborn Monday, Sanders accused Clinton of misrepresenting his position on the auto industry bailout, saying that when the bailout was uncoupled from a Wall Street bailout, he voted for it.

“To say otherwise is to not say the truth,” Sanders said.

Campaigning in Detroit Monday, Clinton scarcely mentioned Sanders — except to characterize Sanders to a young questioner at a Fox News town hall meeting not as an interloper but an ally candidate are allies — instead took aim at Republicans.

“I will do everything I can to keep America safe and I know that among the most important people to help do that are our Muslim American friends. And when you hear the kind of bigotry and bluster coming from the Republican side … it’s not only insulting, it’s dangerous,” she said. “We will not let a person like that ever become president of the United States.”

Kasich held two rallies in Michigan Monday and planned a third one at a Lansing brewery at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, hoping to build momentum in neighboring Michigan before heading home to his home state of Ohio, where polls show Kasich and Trump are neck-and-neck with the real estate tycoon.

On poll in Michigan, the American Research Group Poll, same poll that forecast Kasich’s second-place finish in New Hampshire, gives Kasich a 2-point advantage over the New York real estate tycoon.

“If you want to win a voter that likes Trump, you give them an answer that’s real,” Kasich said at a rally in Monroe. “Because they want to know how their wages are going to go up. They want to know how their job’s going to be secured. They want to know that if people cheat in a trade deal, somebody’s going to stick up for them.”

Cruz made a late-night stop in Grand Rapids Monday, his first since Thursday’s Fox News Republican Debate in Detroit after spending the day in Mississippi, and Rubio had moved on to his home state of Florida, a make-or-break primary for his flagging campaign.

» Photos by Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creative Commons

Data curated by InsideGov