DETROIT — One week from today, maybe two million voters –maybe more — will stream to the polls for Michigan’s presidential primary — a contest that sometimes has been crucial in determining presidential nominees, and sometimes … totally irrelevant.
Which will it be this time?
Well, first let me qualify “streaming to the polls.” True, that many people are expected to vote, but hundreds of thousands have already done so, thanks to new, much more liberal absentee ballot rules for this election.
For the first time ever, anyone who wants an absentee ballot can have one. You can go to the local clerk’s office and ask for one in person as late as Monday — and if you claim some unexpected emergency, you can even get one up till 4 p.m. on Election Day.
Now, if you get one the last couple days, you have to fill it out and turn it in in the city or township clerk’s office by 8 p.m. on election night. How many people will vote absentee?
Nobody knows, but some experts are predicting as many as 850,000 – almost three times the number four years ago.
So who will win – and how significant will their victory be?
Four years ago, there were hard-fought races in both parties, with Donald Trump solidly beating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on the GOP side, 37 percent to 27 percent, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich a close third. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders scored an astonishing upset, beating Hillary Clinton 595,222 to 576,795.
Afterwards, it was noted that Clinton only campaigned in Detroit and Flint. After she won the nomination, she once again visited only those two areas in the fall … and lost again.
This year, of course, there is no real race on the Republican ballot, where President Trump faces barely more than token opposition from former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld.
But there is a big race on the Democratic side – and the ballot gives you a choice of 15 names, plus an option to vote uncommitted.
Trouble is, seven of those candidates had dropped out by mid-February. What if you sent your vote in already for Candidate X, and she or he fails dismally in tonight’s “Super Tuesday” primaries, and drops out tomorrow? You can go to your clerk’s office and vote again.
Someone, however, most likely Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren – will win in Michigan March 10.
Will that give them the momentum to sweep to the nomination in Milwaukee in July?
I can honestly say … I have no idea. But here’s a look back at some of Michigan’s most notable Presidential primaries:
May 18, 1976: That year, Michigan played a major role for both parties, but especially the Republicans. President Gerald Ford, who had taken office after Richard Nixon had resigned less than two years before, was in trouble. Ronald Reagan was challenging him for the GOP nomination, and had won four primaries in a row.
But Michigan Republicans and independents rallied, and there was a huge turnout in favor of the only President ever from their state. Ford crushed Reagan, 65 to 34 percent.
That stopped his slide, helped with fundraising, and when Ford solidly won Ohio three weeks later, it was enough to give him a slim majority at the convention.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter won a squeaker, beating Arizona congressman Mo Udall by a mere 2,000 votes, enough to keep Carter on the path to the nomination and election.
May 20, 1980: Democrats didn’t select their delegates via the primary this year, but Republicans did – and George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan in a 57 to 32 percent landslide.
That did nothing to slow Reagan’s march to the nomination – but it did eventually help convince him that picking Bush as vice president might help him in big northern industrial states.
The rest, as they say, is history.
But Michigan’s primary voters (Democrats have gone back and forth, sometimes using a hard-to-understand caucus) have sometimes been completely out of touch with the national mood.
Take 1988, for example, when supporters of Jesse Jackson shrewdly bused in their Michigan supporters and easily beat the establishment favorite eventual nominee, Michael Dukakis.
Both parties missed the boat in 2008, when the Democratic primary was most notable for 1) being held illegally early and 2) leaving off the ballot the name of one Barack Obama, who ended up winning the nomination. Republicans, on the other hand, snubbed their eventual nominee, John McCain, and voted for Mitt Romney.
Can members of one party make mischief in the other party’s primary? In Michigan, yes they can, as President Obama might have said – and sometimes have.
Two classic cases stand out: 1972, when, with President Richard Nixon assured of renomination, boatloads of Republicans are believed to have crossed over to give segregationist George Wallace a landslide victory in that year’s Democratic primary.
The fact that he had been shot and nearly killed the day before undoubtedly helped win Wallace a huge sympathy vote too.)
Democrats “returned the favor” in 2000, when, with Al Gore already assured of their nomination, many crossed over to give John McCain a big and meaningless win over George W. Bush in Michigan.
So this year, with Trump certain to be the GOP nominee, might Republicans decide to make mischief and vote in the Democratic primary? They very well might.
There is, finally, one big unknown in the Michigan primary this year: How soon will we know the results? Elections workers are not allowed to even open absentee ballot envelopes before Election Day.
Then, they have to flatten the ballots out and run them through machines. They may get that done fast enough to give us complete results that night … or they might not.
As we great journalists say, only time will tell.
(Editor’s Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
-30-
