DETROIT – Several years ago, when Joe Biden was still in his first term as vice-president, I had lunch at the Roma, the oldest restaurant in Detroit. Hector Sossi, the 90-year-old proprietor told me, “Joe Biden was here last night and sat at the table next to you.”
He paused. “He’s a nice guy, but you know something? He’s got no governor on his mouth.”
Hector died not long after that, and a month ago, a lot of people in Michigan and elsewhere thought the loquacious Biden’s political career was on the point of dying too. But this week, Michigan helped make the former vice president the almost inevitable nominee. Here’s how big a turnaround that was: Four years ago, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders stunned everyone in Michigan’s political universe by narrowly beating Hillary Clinton in this state’s Democratic primary. Every poll had shown her far ahead.
But on Election Day, he won, carrying 73 of the state’s 83 counties and giving his insurgent campaign a huge boost.
This week, Sanders got almost the same number of votes as he had four years before. Nearly complete returns gave him 576,916 votes, down just barely from the 598,943 he logged in 2016.
But this time he lost every county in the state. The turnout, boosted by a new state law that allows everyone who wants an absentee ballot to have won, soared. Former Vice-President Joe Biden won 837,881 votes, a new record for the state. (The old record, bizarrely, was set by George Wallace, who received a huge sympathy vote the day after he was shot in 1972. That’s one record today’s Democrats are probably relieved to have had broken.)
Yet while Michigan Democrats clearly preferred Biden, some are legitimately worried as to whether Sanders supporters will back the ticket in November. Four years ago, many of them felt that the process was rigged and were bitter at Hillary Clinton’s forces.
Some – perhaps 12 percent, according to some studies – voted for Donald Trump. Some voted for the Green or Libertarian candidates, whose vote totals soared. And more than 70,000 Michiganders voted in November 2016, but didn’t vote for anyone for president.
Total turnout was down statewide, and Trump won Michigan by just over 10,000 votes – despite receiving fewer votes than President George W. Bush did when he lost the state to John Kerry in 2004.
Could that happen again this year?
Some Sanders supporters are indeed bitter. “No thanks, Joe. I’m tuning out,” said Brian Mroczkowski, a Detroiter who moved here from Buffalo a few years ago. Pablo Bello, a Mexican native, former auto worker and strong Sanders supporter, said bitterly “Senile Biden is going to lose against the orange beast. People are so stupid.”
But this time, Biden reached out to Sanders supporters in his victory statement Tuesday night , thanking them for their “tireless energy and their passion. We share a common goal, and together we’ll defeat Donald Trump. We’re going to bring this nation together.”
That was enough for Carly Adams, a 27-year-old digital manager and marketing coordinator for a Detroit firm. She enthusiastically voted for Sanders four years ago, and again this week. But when the returns were in, she said “I wish there were a path for Bernie, but it is unlikely. We need to make sure we all vote for whoever our nominee is come November.”
Heather Quaine, a 49-year-old disability activist in Detroit, has devoted herself for months to the Sanders campaign, making signs and attending rallies. She was initially bitter at the result, and said she thought the election had been “hijacked” by party centrists who “propped up Biden as their Golden Boy to stop the radical.”
But after she thought for a while – and after Sanders once again said he would support the nominee but continue to fight for his principles, Quaine said “yes, I will vote for Biden if he debates Bernie and reaches the 1,991” delegates needed for the nomination.
She was, however, incensed at the suggestion by James Clyburn, the Democratic congressman from South Carolina, who said it was time to “shut this primary down and cancel the rest of the debates,” which fueled her suspicions of a conspiracy.
But in the end, she said “I know, we have to ‘vote blue, no matter who.’ I get it. Trump is killing Democracy, and us, with his policies.”
Many things may yet happen before November 3. But as of now, I’d guess the odds favor Michigan returning to its traditional recent support of Democratic presidential candidates.
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Footnote: Contrary to popular opinion, people are sometimes willing to raise their taxes – if they know what they are getting for them. Voters in my tiny suburb of Huntington Woods, two miles north of Detroit, were asked to raise their property taxes by an average of $350 a year to fix crumbling local streets. They agreed by two to one.
And voters across Metropolitan Detroit were asked to approve renewing a millage to support the Detroit Institute of Arts. It won by a stunning vote of nearly three to one.
(Editor’s Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
