By Zachary Gorchow
Executive Editor and Publisher
Posted: March 10, 2020 12:54 PM

George Wallace. Ted Kennedy, George H.W. Bush. Jesse Jackson. John McCain. Mitt Romney. Bernie Sanders.

What do these presidential candidates have in common? They won their party's presidential primary or caucuses in Michigan and then went on to lose the overall race for their party's nomination in 1972, 1980 (for both parties), 1988 (again for both parties), 2000, 2008 and 2016, respectively.

Even sometimes when frontrunners still won their party's nomination, they came close to losing Michigan like in 1976 when Jimmy Carter narrowly edged Mo Udall, 1988 when George H.W. Bush "won" the tumultuous Republican presidential caucuses in Michigan that saw walkouts and a rump convention and 2012 when Rick Santorum nearly beat Mitt Romney and then there was a fury about the state party's allocation of delegates.

That said, there have certainly been many times when frontrunners won Michigan and won it big on their road to winning their party's nomination, like 1976 with Gerald Ford, 1984 with Walter Mondale, 1992 with Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, 1996 with Bob Dole, 2000 with Al Gore, 2004 with John Kerry and 2016 with Donald Trump.

Which brings us to today's Michigan Democratic presidential primary between former Vice President Joe Biden and Mr. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont.

The prevailing wisdom is that Mr. Biden is the favorite. And for good reason. His performance in the last 15 states that have voted showed him cutting into Mr. Sanders' support among the types of voters that boosted Mr. Sanders to his 2016 shocker in Michigan over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and enjoying more enthusiasm than Ms. Clinton had among the types of voters who supported her.

However, some of the pronouncements that Mr. Sanders has no chance overlook Michigan's history.

Former Governor John Engler was right about one thing in the lead up to Michigan's 2000 Republican presidential primary when Mr. McCain shocked him and the entire state GOP establishment by soundly defeating George W. Bush. South Carolina had just handed Mr. Bush a huge win days earlier and Mr. Engler was asked then whether that had in effect sewn up Michigan for Mr. Bush. Mr. Engler warned that Michigan would make up its own mind. It did.

Mr. Biden's day and a half of campaigning in Michigan has echoes of Ms. Clinton's effort in the state four years ago when Mr. Sanders outhustled her. To say his organization is skeletal in Michigan would probably overstate its strength.

Yet this sense of Democrats falling in line behind the frontrunner nationally also has the feel of 1992, 2000 and 2004 when Mr. Clinton, Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry won landslide victories here.

If you had to place a bet on someone right now, the betting would be on Mr. Biden. If he makes the kinds of inroads in outstate Michigan that he has in other states among similar voters, Mr. Biden is going to rout Mr. Sanders, who not only needs to win those areas but win them big to replicate his 2016 win here.

But there are a couple of wild cards: same-day registration and crossover voting/raiding/meddling by Republicans.

This is Michigan's first major election since the adoption of Proposal 3 in 2018 that allows voters to register to vote today and cast a ballot in today's election. No one knows exactly how that will play out, especially in signing up the younger voters who are Mr. Sanders' bread-and-butter.

In 1972, some number of Republicans voted in the Democratic primary because President Richard Nixon was unopposed for the Republican nomination. Mr. Wallace, a segregationist, won the Michigan Democratic primary in a humiliating result for Michigan Democrats that prompted them to move to a caucus system for many years, blaming Republicans for trying to embarrass them.

In 2000, with Michigan Democrats using a caucus system, a large number of Democratic and independent voters participated in the open Republican primary and propelled Mr. McCain to victory on an unseasonably warm, sunny February day that brought out far more voters than usual.

And in 2012, there were overt efforts by Democrats to support Mr. Santorum to embarrass Mr. Romney in his native state. President Barack Obama was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

How much credit raiding gets for 1972 and 2000 has always been a matter of some debate. There was plenty of discussion at the time that maybe Mr. Wallace and Mr. McCain legitimately appealed to some voters from the other party and earned those votes as opposed to benefitting from an effort to embarrass the other side.

There has been talk this time around that with Mr. Trump having nominal opposition, Republicans might vote in the Democratic primary, perhaps for Mr. Sanders with the idea that a self-proclaimed socialist would be easy pickings for Mr. Trump in November.

A Biden win seems likely. He crushed it on Super Tuesday even in states where he didn't campaign at all. Many Democrats have concluded they simply cannot risk nominating Mr. Sanders against Mr. Trump.

But there is a path for another Sanders upset. It's an uphill path, an unlikely path, one I would not bet on, but it is there.