No proof Yet of Clinton Running Strong Outside of South

Hillary Clinton’s strong support among African-Americans may soften when she competes outside of the South, where she amassed her daunting delegate lead. Exit polls in Michigan on Tuesday suggested Sanders won three in 10 African-Americans in the Presidential primary, his best showing so far. Outside the South, Secretary Clinton has enjoyed a virtual tie in Iowa, rescue in Nevada by Harry Reid's statewide organization and a narrow win in Massachusetts.

In five days, presidential primaries in important battlegrounds of Cori’s Bush's Missouri, of Illinois and Ohio, will tell us clearly whether Bernie Sanders can continue improving his traction with African American voters in regions outside of the South. It may help Bernie to have strong, high-profile African-American woman politicians like Cori Bush in Missouri and, in Ohio, Nina Turner, standing with him and campaigning for him. It also wouldn’t surprise me to see Jesse Jackson, who has not yet endorsed anybody, returning favors to Bernie in Illinois.

The SEC Primaries cost Bernie Sanders a gout of delegates, but in just one week, Bernie’s Michigan victory allowed him to staunch the bleeding to a trickle and regain momentum. Going forward, it can hardly be insignificant, to Bernie’s improving performance with African-American voters, that a movement activist, like Cori Bush, rises from the ashes in Ferguson and seeks election to the US Senate as a Bernie Sanders Democrat.

I will be one of the least surprised people in America if Bernie again confounds polling and wins lopsided portions of the large delegate troves in the Heartland states of MO, IL and OH. I haven’t really studied Florida, yet, or North Carolina. I can speculate that there are places where an old Jew from New York might do very well in the Sunshine State and can easily imagine North Carolina Democrats being as angry at the establishment as Democrats in Oklahoma obviously were. This could be the week when Bernie Sanders turns the tide and begins to catch up in the delegate count. If that happens, Hillary Clinton’s myth of inevitability explodes. Even if Bernie just holds his own, the myth will be tarnished.

Kos may still have been right about things becoming more or less settled by March 15, but he also may have yet miscalculated whom the leading candidate turns out to be.