FLINT, Mich. — For months, Bernie Sanders’ top aides have been telling staffers and allies to keep a close eye on Michigan and its student-packed, economically struggling, and organized-labor-heavy population.

A win in a big industrial state could upend the race, they say — and Michigan figured to be especially receptive to the Vermont senator’s economic message.


But with just two days before the state’s delegate-rich primary, Sanders hasn’t yet made the sale. He has trailed by double-digits in each of the nine public polls taken since the beginning of February. Hillary Clinton’s got the backing of both of Detroit’s newspapers, the state’s top Democrats, and the mayor of hard-hit Flint. While there are signs of tightening as Sanders floods the airwaves with ads, Clinton’s big margins among African-Americans elsewhere raise questions about whether the senator can break through in a state where 14 percent of the population is black.

“There are certainly pockets of Michigan that are going to be very supportive [of Sanders]: the students and the universities. I understand him trying to make the play for folks who have been affected by trade agreements — I used to campaign saying, ‘NAFTA and CAFTA have given us the shaft-a.’ We feel it more than anywhere else in the country because of the loss of automotive jobs, so I would understand why he would make a big play in Michigan,” explained former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Clinton supporter who now serves as an advisor to Correct The Record, one of the super PACs supporting the front-runner.

Sanders’ focus on Michigan began long ago, when his campaign recognized that Super Tuesday was chock-full of Southern states likely to go to Clinton. With its 130 delegates, Sanders’ top aides saw that even a close contest in Michigan one week later could earn their candidate a large chunk of delegates.

But now that Sanders has fallen behind Clinton by more than 200 pledged delegates — he lost ground even after winning two of three states that voted Saturday — the task of over-performing in one of the few large upcoming states where his economic inequality pitch has particular resonance is all the more urgent. As a result, Sanders has been zeroing in on trade policy, which his campaign views as a major point of contrast with Clinton, as well as one that they believe can expand their appeal with black voters. It's likely to be a major part of the conversation Sunday evening when the two candidates debate here in Flint.

“The African-American middle class in Michigan has been destroyed by the job-crushing trade deals that Secretary Clinton has consistently supported over the years,” said Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver last week, previewing the Michigan fight. The state “offers a sharp contrast between the two candidates on such an important issue — about whether you stood with working families, or whether you chose to side with corporate interests who are shipping our jobs overseas."

Sanders has since opened the floodgates on Clinton, tying her directly to Detroit’s economic devastation over recent decades. In a Thursday tweet from his account, the campaign wrote, “The people of Detroit know the real cost of Hillary Clinton’s free trade policies,” attaching five images of dilapidated buildings. On Friday, his campaign circulated a video of Clinton speaking in India in 2012, noting specifically that she appeared to praise outsourcing — a particular point of contention in the state.

“If the people of Michigan want to make a decision about which candidate stood with workers against corporate America and against these disastrous trade agreements, that candidate is Bernie Sanders,” added Sanders in a strident speech in Traverse City that same day.

The focus on trade agreements, said Michigan pollster Steve Mitchell — whose firm has seen Clinton’s lead slip significantly in recent days, even as she has maintained a double-digit advantage — could certainly help him in white working class areas of Oakland County and Macomb County, the famed home of Reagan Democrats. But Mitchell cautioned that those advantages could be off-set by the fact that many of Sanders’ college-aged voters — a considerable part of his base — will be out of the state on vacation from school during the primary.

“It’s tightening, but structurally there are some major problems he [still] has to face in Michigan,” he added. "Number one is [that] Clinton is very strong with African-American voters and a quarter of voters will be black in Michigan. She’s going to win that by thirty points or more.”

“Michigan is also an older state, and she does very well with older voters,” he said. “[T]he third problem that Sanders has is his strongest groups is 18-to-29-year-old voters, with a special focus on college voters. [But] on Tuesday the vast majority of the Michigan State students will be in Florida or the Bahamas, on spring break. So unless they were smart enough to get an absentee ballot I don’t think he’s going to get that bump."

Further complicating his task, the Clinton campaign anticipated Sanders’ focus on the state after he suffered sweeping losses across the South and in Massachusetts on Super Tuesday — making Michigan into the party’s most intensely-courted battleground over the past week. If Sanders were to win Michigan it could give him a new spark of life, Democrats from both sides of the Clinton-Sanders divide acknowledge, further fueling a White House bid that he already says will go until July’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Clinton allies concede that Sanders would likely take a big Michigan win as a sign that he should keep pushing the front-runner hard — even if it's accompanied Tuesday by what's likely to be a large loss in Mississippi.

While Sanders has been criss-crossing the state rallying huge college crowds, Clinton has been circling Detroit, joined in the state by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and her daughter Chelsea Clinton. As the Vermont senator has railed against trade deals supported by the former secretary of state in the past — at rallies, a press conference, and in television ads that argue the deals directly led to the economic difficulties of cities like Detroit — she has been fighting back with her own ads, and in a high-profile manufacturing-focused speech in the city on Friday.

But, Granholm said, pointing to Clinton’s early visit to Flint after news of that city’s water contamination crisis went nationwide, Clinton’s level of policy specificity has overtaken Sanders’ appeal on the ground so far: “When she was the senator from New York she represented places like Buffalo and Rochester, and she looked people in the eyes and talked to the people. When she was co-chair of the Manufacturing Caucus as a senator, these issues were top of mind."

Sanders allies remain optimistic about the delegate haul he could pull from Michigan even in a close defeat. But some privately acknowledge that his prospects may be dimmer than expected thanks to two factors that have saved Clinton thus far in 2016: her advantage among minority voters and her near-universal name recognition.

As his top aides frequently note, Sanders does best in states when he has time to properly introduce himself to voters — like he did in Iowa and New Hampshire — and that he has struggled in those where he is not as well-known or recognized as Clinton.

“Focusing on trade and the anxieties of working class folks, whether they’re members of organized labor or not, it's not surprising that it would be his pitch in Michigan. We’ll see if that’s enough to overcome some of the structural advantages she has, from her relationship with the African-American community to her infrastructure with the elected officials,” said Brandon Dillon, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

But, he acknowledged, pointing to a poll taken last month that showed Clinton up by 20, “I think the race is probably tighter at this point."