As is often the case for pundit roundups after Tuesday elections, the best stories are yet to be written. We’ll have the best of them tomorrow.
Meanwhile… a terrific night for Bernie in MI, a good night for Hillary in MS. Mississippi was expected, but Bernie’s performance in MI was not. MI was both an upset and a polling fail. Congratulations to Bernie and his hard working supporters for a big win that I think surprised even the Sanders campaign!
NY Times:
Mr. Sanders won Michigan’s primary by appealing to white working-class voters, while Mrs. Clinton had emphasized the auto industry bailout and the contaminated water in Flint.
This may actually be the story of the MI Dem race:
Delegate counts are here. As of this writing Hillary gets 87, Bernie gets 69 from the day (10 unallocated, 3 from MS and 7 from MI). Delegate math is cruel.
Lots to talk about on the R side with Donald Trump winning the big states of MS and MI and also HI, Cruz wins Idaho, and Rubio isn’t off the schnide (zero delegates yesterday). He’s pretty much done, whatever his campaign says about Florida. Kasich finishes third in MI and will hang on until OH. But he won’t be President , either.
Here’s the GOP delegate count. And here’s the map. Trump is doing well in the old CSA, Cruz is running out of evangelical states.
Aryeh Cohen-Wade has a terrific 30-part tweet storm on the origins of Donald Trump, well worth reading.
Ron Fournier:
I grew up among Reagan Democrats; their racial and economic grievances were the soundtrack of my childhood. For people like Benson Brundage, a Macomb County contractor who told me in 2012 that welfare is racial “subsidization,” Donald Trump gives voice to their fears.
Mitt Romney dog-whistled at them in 2012. Now the former GOP nominee is suggesting that Trump is a bigot.
Well, that’s because he is. But it didn’t stop Romney from accepting his endorsement in 2012. Nor should that be shocking (see this from 2012).
Philip Klein:
Why the net cost of stopping Trump at a contested convention would be worth it
Catherine Rampell:
So why have none of the GOP’s attacks on Trump stuck? Maybe it’s because Trump, the new Teflon Don, has unusually effective nonstick properties. Or maybe it’s because party honchos have been too cowardly to do the one thing — an admittedly very unpleasant thing — that might convince Republican voters that Trump is a real threat to the liberal world order.
They’d need to voice the most damning insult of all, at least in the minds of Republicans: an acknowledgment that even Hillary Clinton would make a better president than Donald J. Trump.
Greg Sargent:
All the high-minded criticism from right-leaning writers could dissuade Republican politicians from supporting Trump, by warning them what a disaster he’d be for the country (and for conservatism and the GOP), thus persuading them not to act on short-term political expediency if he keeps winning. That’s a noble goal and could make a difference. But the fact that some of these criticisms of Trumpism are not being targeted towards Republican voters in any serious or sustained way tells us a lot about why Trump is succeeding.
Sean Trende with a lesson for all of us:
Josh Barro:
Members of the Republican "establishment" are finally grappling with the likelihood that their party is about to nominate Donald Trump. But they still don't understand how they brought this phenomenon on themselves.
Here is my suggestion to them: If you want to understand how Trump invaded your party, think first about what Ben Carson's campaign, and other campaigns like it, say about your party.
It has become routine for people who obviously never ought to be president, like Herman Cain, to enjoy success in the Republican primary polls for a time and conservative fame — and speaking fees and book sales — thereafter. Sarah Palin has made a similar career without ever technically running for president, raising funds instead for a political action committee that mostly spends money on consultants, giving very little to actual Republican campaigns.
Dave Roberts:
Though Donald Trump has made it easy to see white backlash purely in terms of anger and prejudice, I think it's a useful exercise, intellectually and empathically, to try and understand what reactionary white voters crave, what they feel is missing.
"The Good Things," like much white nostalgia, is about a world that never quite was, an idealized American past with the dirty bits brushed off: "men who love their wives / Who take their kids when they go fishin' ... A fireman who climbs a tree / And sets a little kitten free ... A policeman who helps you cross the avenue."
This kind of rose-tinted sentimentalism may strike many people — especially minorities and other subaltern groups who were excluded from that American idyll — as silly, even dangerous. But putting the grim historical realities aside, the nostalgia also reflects primal urges that are worth understanding, and honoring.
Amber Phillips:
Most GOP senators appear ready to back Trump, but plenty would rather not talk about it
The only definite no is Ben Sasse from NE. Our job is to make them pay a price.
Sun-Sentinel (FL) with a terrific and fun editorial read (they’re having a sad it’s not Jeb!):
Why we can't endorse Trump, Rubio, Cruz or Kasich
If you think Marco Rubio can unite the Republican Party under a winning banner, vote for him. But remember that he has almost no experience and has done little but run for office. Then, when he gets in office, he doesn't go to work very much. He holds the worst attendance record in the U.S. Senate.
Because Rubio has failed to do his job as a senator, broken the promises he made to Floridians and backed away from his lone signature piece of legislation on immigration, we cannot endorse him for president.
Sahil Kapur:
Cruz's Rise Against Trump Fails to Win Over Senate Colleagues
The Texan remains the only Republican candidate without any Senate endorsements.