Michigan Primary Results

Well, that's a surprise. I voted for a winner!

Bernie Sanders won the Michigan Democratic primary yesterday, with a narrow margin over Hillary Clinton. That sounds fairly unimpressive, until you factor in that most polls had Clinton ahead by double digits. A lot of the story was turnout. Younger voters (under 30) overwhelmingly support Sanders, and they came out to vote. Actually, everyone came out to vote. It was the highest turnout in a primary election since 1972 in Michigan. It's good to see that people are exercising their voting rights.

Despite the near-even split in Michigan, most supporters of Democrat candidates seem to feel the same as I do...whoever wins, we'll support. The Washington Post put it nicely: "...recent surveys suggest that Democratic voters remain firmly united as a party and would stand behind either candidate in a general election. The data on the state of the party is a striking contrast to the chaos that threatens to overwhelm Republicans, especially after another good day at the polls for Donald Trump."

That good day for Trump makes it even more likely that he'll be the Republican nominee in November. It's hard for me to imagine that he might win the general election; but then, it was hard to imagine six months ago that he'd be this close to a primary win. Not that it matters all that much in my opinion. As I've explained before, none of the Republicans hold anything close to reasonable economic positions as far as I'm concerned, making it pretty inconsequential who is running on their ticket.

Good for Bernie, pulling out an unexpected victory here in the northern Midwest. Having said that, I fully intend now to completely ignore the presidential race for another few months. Next vote is in November, so I have an entire spring and summer to focus on more important things (like baseball!) before I have to think about it again.