What Biden’s Super Tuesday wins mean for Wisconsin
On paper, Wisconsin ought to be a very good primary state for Bernie Sanders.
But how much will that matter in April?
Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday has altered the Democratic race for president and given it a new front-runner.
It has introduced the possibility that Biden seizes command of the contest and builds an almost insurmountable delegate lead before the campaign even reaches Wisconsin next month.
But a second scenario is also plausible: a more protracted duel between two major contenders (Biden and Sanders) with distinct and enduring coalitions.
Biden’s coalition (older voters, African Americans, moderates) will give him the upper hand in some — and maybe most — of the states that vote in the next several weeks.
Sanders’ coalition (younger voters, Latinos and the most liberal voters) will give him the upper hand in others.
It’s unclear whether Sanders’ coalition is big enough right now to win him the nomination. But it’s certainly big
enough for him to fight for it.
Unknowns, surprises, potential twists and possible pratfalls loom, making it foolish to think we can see the future. April 7, the date of Wisconsin’s stand-alone primary, is the distant future in campaign time.
But we can speculate, can’t we? Wisconsin’s role in the fight for the nomination will be determined by how long it takes Democrats to produce a de facto nominee. Two-thirds of the pledged delegates will be awarded before Wisconsin.
The fact that Democrats allocate delegates proportionally instead of winner-take-all means that no one will have a delegate majority by then. It’s too hard to dominate the delegate count.
But the front-runner could have a prohibitive lead by then since the same system that makes it hard for a frontrunner to gain separation makes it hard for a candidate who is behind to catch up.
Fifteen more states will vote between now and April 7.
None may have a bigger impact on Wisconsin’s role than Michigan. It votes Tuesday along with Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington state.
Michigan is not only the largest of the group, but it is already seen as the biggest test for Sanders, since he narrowly won that state’s 2016 primary, and its demographic and political makeup doesn’t dramatically advantage either contender.
If Sanders wins Michigan, it’s a major boost.
If Sanders loses Michigan, his claim to have a viable path to the nomination will be seriously weakened, and he’ll face additional challenges in states such as Florida and Ohio on March 17 and Georgia on March 24.
Under the “bad news” scenario for Sanders, he could find himself making a desperate late stand in Wisconsin.
Under the “good news” scenario for Sanders, he’d be duking it out with Biden through March with little separation in the delegate race. Wisconsin would be a major opportunity for a signature victory.
Is either candidate advantaged in Wisconsin?
There are too many unknowns to say.
The case for Sanders in Wisconsin
But all things being equal, Wisconsin ought to be a friendly state for Sanders. He won it by double digits four years ago against Hillary Clinton, winning every county but Milwaukee.
He is popular among Democratic voters in the state, months of polling has shown. He had overtaken Biden among Democratic primary voters in Wisconsin before Biden began his comeback in South Carolina on Saturday.
Wisconsin has an open primary with lots of independents voting. Sanders did better on Tuesday with self-described independents than he did with Democrats. And he won independents in Wisconsin’s 2016 primary against Hillary Clinton by more than 40 points, according to the exit poll.
Young voters, a key part of Sanders’ base, have a penchant for turning out at higher levels in Wisconsin than many other states. The state has a large pool of progressive voters.
Finally, the small size of Wisconsin’s African American population limits the impact of Biden’s strongest voting group, which is good for Sanders.
And the case for Biden
But there’s another side to the equation.
Wisconsin is an extremely high turnout state. Its 2016 presidential primary had the second-highest turnout in the nation. A big broad electorate reduces the importance of organization (a Sanders strength) and may mean a bigger role for moderate voters more comfortable with Biden’s politics or convinced he’d have a better shot than Sanders at defeating President Donald Trump.
Finally, of all the states that voted Tuesday, Minnesota was easily the closest to Wisconsin in its political makeup, and Biden won an upset victory there. He was helped by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s late withdrawal and endorsement.
But Sanders’ Minnesota defeat is a cautionary sign for him about Wisconsin. While the exit polls suggest Sanders won independents and young voters in Minnesota, his advantage among liberal voters against Biden was far smaller (single digits) than his deficit among moderate voters (more than 40 points). This was precisely the opposite of what happened in the 2016 Wisconsin primary when Sanders dominated among liberal voters and fought Clinton to a draw among moderates.
So here we are at another potential pivot point in a contest that has been transformed in less than a week by the voting power of African American voters, moderate white voters coalescing behind Biden and Sanders’ failure to significantly expand his base.
The field has narrowed dramatically, with Elizabeth Warren’s continued candidacy in question.
This phase of the Democratic race could now begin to resemble 2004, when front-runner John Kerry rolled to the nomination against more populist rivals.
Or it could look like 2016, when Sanders fought a persistent but perpetually uphill fight against front-runner Clinton.
Or it could look like 2008, when the race boiled down to two closely matched heavyweights with vast staying power (Clinton and Barack Obama) — both popular with Democratic voters but mobilizing different coalitions that advantaged them in different states.
Which direction the race takes over the next few weeks will determine whether Wisconsin’s April 7 primary is a high-stakes showdown, a dramatic last stand, a sideshow or an afterthought.
Craig Gilbert has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and chronicled Wisconsin’s role as a swing state at the center of the nation’s political divide. He has written widely about polarization and voting trends and won distinction for his data-driven analysis. Gilbert has served as a writer-inresidence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Lubar Fellow at Marquette Law School and a KnightWallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he studied public opinion, survey research, voting behavior and statistics. Email him at craig.gilbert@jrn.com and follow him on Twitter: @WisVoter.