For our fall contests, we have two different media outlets, two fresh polls to look at today.
NBC:
The poll shows that Trump, who frequently boasts in interviews and campaign appearances that he would beat Clinton in November, would lose a one-on-one contest against her by double digits. In a head-to-head fight, Clinton gets the support of 51 percent of registered voters compared to 38 percent for the real estate mogul.
For Sanders, the margin of victory would be even greater, the poll shows.
The Vermont senator gets 55 percent support in a hypothetical two-person race against Trump, while the GOP front-runner would get just 37 percent
Hillary vs Cruz/Rubio are tossups, but then again, they aren’t the likely nominee.
WaPo has the data I look for instead of head to heads, but unlike NBC/WSJ above, no Bernie numbers:
When Americans are asked who they believe would win if Clinton and Trump were the nominees, Clinton is the overwhelming choice, with 59 percent naming her compared with 36 percent choosing Trump. That is an increase of five points for Clinton since January.
About one-third of all Republicans (32 percent) doubt that Trump would defeat Clinton in November, up from 21 percent in January. Independent voters also are more bullish about Clinton’s chances against Trump than they were at the start of the year.
The story line I keep seeing in the comments about the D nominee being weak in the general with [indies/D crossovers/fill in blank] doesn’t seem to be supported by facts.
And here’s another factoid: Obama got 2.56 million votes in 2012 in Michigan On Tuesday, the MI Democratic primary got 1.19 million. That’s a pretty darn good turnout, impressive and congrats!
But the winner (Bernie Sanders) got around 23% of Obama’s general election total and the runner-up a tad less than that. So go easy on extrapolations as to what the win means for November. It’s a different electorate in the fall, and (spoiler) they are not running against each other.
So what happened in Michigan?
Alex Seitz-Wald:
When exhausted Sanders staffers reached their hotel in Miami Tuesday night, they were stunned to find their candidate ahead in early returns and scrambled to assemble a podium so he could address the press. As Clinton gave a speech in Cleveland that did not mention Michigan, seemingly frustrated aides focused on Clinton’s large net delegate win in Mississippi, which held a primary on the same day.
So what happened? Both campaigns are still picking over the wreckage for clues, but here’s what we know so far about how Sanders net an unlikely victory.
Harry Enten:
The question I am asking myself now is whether this means the polls are off in other Midwestern states that are holding open primaries. I’m talking specifically about Illinois and Ohio, both of which vote next Tuesday. The FiveThirtyEight polling average in Illinois gives Clinton a 37 percentage point lead, while the average in Ohio gives her a 20 percentage point lead. If Michigan was just a fluke (which is possible), then tonight will be forgotten soon enough. If, however, pollsters are missing something more fundamental about the electorate, then the Ohio and Illinois primaries could be a lot closer than expected.
Either way, this result will send a shock wave through the press. Heck, I’m a member of the press, and you might be able to tell how surprised I am. This will likely lead to increased news coverage of the Democratic race, which Sanders desperately needs in order to be competitive next Tuesday and beyond.
Glenn Thrush with 5 good take-aways including:
Democrats don’t want the primary to end. Paradoxically, Clinton’s loss in Michigan in 2016 mirrors her big New Hampshire win in 2008. Obama, speaking to me during an “Off Message” podcast earlier this year, chalked up his defeat to buyer’s remorse: Voters, who had just handed him a campaign-changing victory in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, were in a hold-on-a-second, skeptical mood.
The difference is that Obama was viewed back then as the vanguard of his party’s ascendant progressive wing, and Clinton — who has adopted most of the left’s core positions — is seen as positioning herself as a prog. That may not be fair (especially on health care reform, where she was a pioneer), but it reflects the restive mood of the party’s base; there’s a sense among younger voters ignorant of Clinton’s long-haul history that she’s a me-too on issues of economic inequality and social justice compared to Sanders, an early adopter who languished in the wilderness because he was so, so brave and pure…
Momentum is important — so is money — and Michigan refills Sanders’ tank with both. But as Clinton’s campaign is reminding us by the minute, she actually gained delegates on Tuesday despite the shock-horror headlines. Sanders netted a modest nine pledged delegates in Michigan for his 1.5-percentage-point win, but she destroyed him in Mississippi, where she out-delegated Sanders by a whopping 32 to 5.
You may not like the tone, but he’s right. We have two good candidates. And we have a big election night Tuesday. No one is taking anything for granted.
Philip Bump:
Clinton was supposed to win Michigan. In the Real Clear Politics polling average in the state, Clinton led by 20 points coming into Tuesday night. And then she lost. What happened?
One thing that happened is that Clinton underperformed with black voters in the state. In Mississippi, which Clinton won easily, nearly two-thirds of the vote was black and it went for Clinton 9-to-1. Preliminary exit polling in Michigan suggests that only about a quarter of the electorate in the state was black -- and that Clinton's margin was closer to 2-to-1.
And here’s your HuffPost pollster polling fix for you junkies:
Polls Got It Seriously Wrong In Michigan's Democratic Primary
A swing and a Mich for pollsters, who said Hillary Clinton would easily win the state.
Igor Bobic:
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) last month raised serious concerns about Donald Trump's presidential bid, warning that the brash real estate mogul could become an "albatross" around the necks of the party's congressional candidates in November.
On Wednesday, Republicans got of taste of how this could happen.
Senate Majority PAC, the liberal-leaning outside group tasked with regaining a Democratic majority in the Senate, released a television ad targeting Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) for refusing to consider anyone President Barack Obama nominates to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Philip Bump on the biggest loser:
It’s hard to exaggerate what a debacle Tuesday night was for the senator from Florida. It was fine to come in third in Iowa’s caucuses when he saw a late surge and was running against 11 other people. It is not fine to come in third in Idaho in a field of four candidates. It is not fine to win 16 percent of the vote there, when you need 20 percent to qualify for any delegates. It is not fine at all to come in fourth — dead last in the current field — in both Mississippi and Michigan, qualifying for delegates in neither.
Politico:
What less than a year ago looked to be the most talented Republican field in decades has been laid to waste by a candidate whose stream-of-consciousness monologues, opaque policy positions and racially charged populist nationalism have only made his reality show of a campaign — a hybrid of “Seinfeld” and “All in the Family” — impossible for rivals to compete with and too compelling for the country to ignore.
Trump’s ultimate test, however, is still one week away.
After adding to his delegate lead with victories in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii Tuesday night, Trump looked and sounded like a candidate who knows he can’t be beaten. He carries more momentum than any of his rivals into critical March 15 contests in Ohio and Florida, two winner-take-all states where John Kasich and Marco Rubio, respectively, will be making their last stands — not in hopes of eventually winning the nomination outright, just surviving to a July floor fight at the RNC convention.
What do Bernie, Hillary and the Donald have in common? They’ve laid waste to the competition and laid bare the lie that this is a talented and deep Republican field. As for the Donald, well, see the graphic on top. It’ll take work and nothing should be taken for granted (see MI, Hillary) but we can certainly win in November. You want to argue that? Come right in.
ABC:
Americans broadly favor Senate hearings on a U.S. Supreme Court nomination by President Obama, with nearly half of Republicans – as well as large majorities of Democrats and independents alike – pushing back against the GOP leadership on whether to consider a nominee.
Sixty-three percent overall in a new ABC News-Washington Post poll favor hearings and a vote on whether to accept Obama’s nomination of a replacement for Antonin Scalia, the high court justice who died Feb. 13. Half as many, 32 percent, say hearings should be set aside and the nomination left for Obama’s successor, the position taken by Senate Republican leaders.