Kathleen Gray and Todd Spangler

Detroit Free Press

The presidential polls were off. Way off.

They indicated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would easily win the state's primary election. The polls in the last week had Clinton as the victor by anywhere from 13% to 37% over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The Detroit Free Press poll taken last week had Clinton up by 25 points.

But those polls missed the enthusiasm for Sanders on the ground, especially among young people, said Mark Brewer, former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

"He ran a very smart, strategic campaign. His rallies were very targeted, and there were people lined up for miles trying to get into those things," he said. "And he did respectably among African-American voters. She didn’t get the margins she was expecting there."

Young Arab-American Muslim voters helped fuel Sanders' win

Consider the voter turnout shattered records when more than 2.5 million people cast ballots. Sanders won big just about everywhere, except in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. And while a big showing in Wayne County and its city of Detroit often spells victories for many candidates, the turnout was 25% in Detroit and 31% in Wayne County, while the statewide total was closer to 40%.

Hundreds of supporters of Sanders began meeting weekly last summer across the state, in places like Lansing, Detroit, Traverse City, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, said Kelly Collison,a Sanders volunteer from Lansing. As their numbers grew, many were willing to drop everything to help out the campaign, including heading to Iowa and New Hampshire to help their candidate to victories.

"Between the rallies, which got people fired up, and the grass roots support that we’ve had in this state since last spring, this was truly a unique election," she said. "The message that is really firing people up is that nothing can happen to change in the country unless the American people rise up."

And while Clinton had broad institutional support from many elected officials and some unions, she didn't have the passionate following that was the hallmark of Sanders' campaign in Michigan.

While many said the race in Michigan would come down to demographics — and Clinton’s advantage with African-American voters — exit polling done for CNN suggested it was more about issues and widespread dissatisfaction with the federal government.

Bernie Sanders makes case to Dearborn crowd

Clinton had tried to hit Sanders for what she claimed was a vote against the 2009 auto rescue, a charge he fervently denied as misrepresenting his support. But in the end, it was his claim — that Clinton had supported trade deals that hurt U.S. employment — that resonated with voters.

"The trade issue was a late-breaking issue that not only affected the whole discourse of the campaign. I think it turned a lot of voters away from Hillary Clinton," said Bernie Porn, president of EPIC/MRA, the Lansing-based pollster who did the poll for the Free Press and other media partners. "Even in our poll, she was not doing as well with union members."

Indeed, two of the most influential unions in the state — the United Auto Workers and the AFL-CIO — declined to endorse anyone in the race.

He also said the electorate showed some Clinton fatigue Tuesday.

"The same thing happened with Bush, and he got out of the race. Clearly, there was much more passion from the people who were attracted to Sanders," Porn said. "She was perceived as too close to business, and all that Wall Street stuff may have also connected."

Sanders upsets Clinton in Michigan, Trump wins GOP contest

New York businessman Donald Trump also did well among voters who felt economically unstable, and his victory was more in line with the polls predicted. He won nearly 37% of the vote and 25 of Michigan's 59 delegates, followed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who had about 25%, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who had 24%. They each were allotted 17 delegates. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio finished a distant fourth, with 9% of the vote and no delegates..

"He appeals to people who, whether they admit it or not, considerable themselves vulnerable in this society and they think Donald Trump has their backs," said Farmington Hills political consultant Paul Welday.

CNN’s exit poll, which surveyed 1,601 Michigan Democratic voters as they left their precincts Tuesday, showed that 58% of them believed trade with other countries costs jobs, compared to 30% who believe they create them. And among those who believe trade costs jobs, Sanders won by a large margin, 58%-41%.

Meanwhile, most voters in the exit poll — 70% — declared themselves angry or dissatisfied with the federal government, and of those voters, 54% backed Sanders compared to 45% for Clinton.

Clinton scored well with the 27% of Democratic primary voters who believed experience was the top quality they wanted in a candidate, winning 79%-20% among them, and with the 11% who wanted to back the more electable candidate. She took those voters 74%-26%.

But Sanders scored better with a larger group, namely the 33% who said they wanted a candidate who “cares.” Among those, he beat Clinton 55%-41%, according to CNN’s exit polls. Among the 27% who said honesty was most important, he won 80%-19%.

Geography and demographics played key roles as well: While Clinton did better with urban votes, as expected, winning 57%-39% according to the exit polls, that vote made up only 17% of the total voters. That's only slightly more than the 16% of voters from rural areas, where voters backed Sanders 57%-43%, and far less than the 67% from the suburbs, which went for Sanders 52%-47%.

Explaining Hillary Clinton's, Bernie Sanders' votes on the auto bailout

Clinton did far better with black voters, as expected, winning that bloc, 65%-31%, but that was a much smaller margin than in Southern states, and black voters made up less than one-quarter of those voting. And among the 68% of voters who were white, Sanders won handily, 57%-41%.

Darci McConnell, a Detroit political consultant, said Clinton took the African-American vote for granted.

"The first commercial I saw courting the black vote was from Bernie. The first mailer I got was a few weeks ago from Bernie, and the first mailer I got from Hillary last week was asking for money," she said. "Don’t make the mistake of assuming that folks will be there, especially when it comes to young folks."

And while Sanders held huge rallies across the state, Clinton's events in Michigan were small and more focused on things like visiting businesses and going to Detroit churches the Sunday before polls opened.

Clinton won with the 56% of the electorate that is female, 51%-46%, but Sanders did better with men, 55%-43%. And in terms of age, Clinton, as expected, won with older voters, taking 57% of the vote from people ages 45-64 and 68% of that from those older than 65.

That age group — 45 and older — made up 55% of the Democratic electorate, a big number but not big enough to stop Sanders, who got a whopping 81% of the voters age 18-29, larger than many may have expected. Those voters made up 21% of the electorate. He got 55% of those age 30-44, who made up 25% of those voting.

The turnout in counties with big student populations — such as Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo and East Lansing — was way up, and Sanders won those areas with significant, double-digit margins.

Clinton led among self-described Democrats who made up 69% of those voting, with a 57%-41% edge over Sanders. But among the 28% who voted in the primary who described themselves as independents, Sanders won handily, 71%-28%.

With all the votes tallied, pollsters were left scratching their heads, crunching the numbers and trying to figure out how to do it better next time.

"The polls were more wrong than in a long time," Porn said.

Part of the problem for some of the polls, including the last one for the Free Press, was that the surveys were done before the Super Tuesday election results and before the debates on both the Republican and Democratic side.

"Several of the polls that were really wrong were automated calls and you couldn’t call cell phones," Porn said. "But our modeling looked at normal turnout in terms of participation of younger voters and that was way underestimated."

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal