What with last night's Democratic debate, and Romney's dramatic win in the Michigan GOP primary, it was easy to have missed that there was also a Democratic primary in Michigan as well. Yep, it pitted Hillary against...well...no one actually. So, naturally, she won handily.
Obama/Edwards supporters, not to fret—yet. Since Michigan violated DNC rules by moving their primary ahead of Nevada—an important western state that they wanted to showcase as a future potential stronghold—the party is currently refusing to recognize Michigan's slate of delegates at Denver's national convention.
But how long can the party refuse to recognize the delegates from a major swing state? Considering how close the nomination contest could get, prepare for a convention floor fight in Denver, with the potential prize of Michigan's 156 delegates deciding the outcome.
In any event, exit polling from the Michigan Democratic race revealed some interesting data, much of it not so good for the senator from NY. From Thomas Edsall of the Huffington Post:
Clinton got 47 percent and the anonymous/non-existent opposition got 43 percent.
Among black voters, Clinton was crushed by "uncommitted," 26-70. If that kind of margin among African Americans continues into future primaries, she faces major problems in the heavily black January 26 South Carolina primary and in the states with large black populations going to the polls on February 5 — so-called Tsunami Tuesday.
Clinton ran poorly among young voters of all races, losing those under the age of 30 by 39-48 percent; splitting voters from 30 to 44 by 46-48 percent; solidly carrying the 45 to 56 age group by 54-34 percent; and winning voters 60 and older by a landslide 67-31 percent.
In a warning signal if she becomes the Democratic nominee, Clinton did much better among committed Democrats, winning them 57-37, than among independents, losing them 32-51.
Obviously, the African-American demographic data is the most alarming for Clinton. If 70% of the black voters in Michigan went to the polls knowing that they could not vote for anyone but her, or "Uncommitted", and picked Uncommitted, that says a lot about how strongly they might be feeling about the Obama candidacy.
Speaking of candidate "Uncommitted", Mark Kleiman had some fun today with Uncommitted's impact:
Uncommitted seems to have kept the Michigan race close, beating HRC decisively among black voters and keeping her margin to about 15 points overall. In accord with gender stereotypes, male voters were much more prepared to Uncommit, while female voters preferred commitment, even to an obviously unsuitable object.
