Heidi M. Przybyla

USA TODAY

The state of Michigan could be Bernie Sanders’ last, best chance to challenge Hillary Clinton’s hold on the Democratic presidential race.

The Midwestern industrial state, which holds its primary Tuesday, is the ideal audience for Sanders’ campaign message about “unfair” trade agreements, income inequality and a “rigged economy.”

“This is ground zero for trade,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich. “People are frustrated. It’s been almost 15 years, and they’re not better off than they were,” said the first-term Democrat, who is backing Clinton.

Yet Clinton has consistently led in polls — a Monmouth University Poll out Monday showed her up 13 points. “If he can’t win in Michigan, where can he win besides these small caucus states?” said Susan Demas, publisher of Inside Michigan Politics, a political analysis newsletter. Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver is calling Michigan “a critical showdown.”

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Mississippi also holds a primary on Tuesday, and Clinton is favored there.

The city of Detroit has gone from one of the country’s richest in the 1960s to one of the poorest. The once-thriving automotive hub is pocked by blighted homes and crime and has more children living in extreme poverty than any of the nation’s 50 largest cities. Manufacturing job losses devastated neighboring communities, sowing more than 20 years of resentment among white, working-class Democrats over the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Sanders is hitting Clinton hard on the trade issue, including a recent ad picturing abandoned homes and factories. NAFTA was championed by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, though the former first lady is trying to distance herself from a number of those policies.

Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman said the outlook for Sanders is bleak. “The Democratic race is fundamentally over at this point,” he said, estimating Sanders would have to win three-fifths of remaining party delegates just to draw even with Clinton. Delegate-rich states next up on the calendar, including Florida, also favor Clinton.

“Sanders is still in the race to make the point, but it’s not a close contest. Michigan will further drive that point home,” said Wasserman.

After losing Southern primary states with large black voter populations to Clinton — as well as Massachusetts — Michigan is among Sanders’ final opportunities to prove that his economic message has broad appeal and that he can make inroads with minorities. Up to 30% of the Democratic electorate is expected to be African American.

According to Demas, Sanders missed a critical opportunity in a Sunday night debate in Flint to capitalize on his economic message by standing behind his vote against a 2009 government bailout that many in Michigan credit for saving the automotive industry and 4 million jobs.

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“It was always going to be difficult for him to close the gap,” said Demas. “His answer on the auto bailout was almost disastrous.”

Sanders defended his vote by saying most of the money in the bill went to Wall Street banks. “I will be damned if it was the working people of this country who had to bail out the crooks on Wall Street,” he said. On Monday, Sanders clarified that he supported a $14 billion auto bailout until it migrated into a Wall Street package, accusing Clinton of a “disingenuous” attack to “deflect” attention from her own record on trade.

Michigan could expose some of Clinton’s longer-term vulnerabilities. Some of the state’s most powerful unions, including the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, traditional Democratic allies, haven’t endorsed a candidate. Many union rank-and-file backed her husband in 1992 and 1996 but are now supporting Sanders or Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

“She’s also competing with Donald Trump, who’s made this a strong issue and not backed down on the currency trade issue,” said Dingell. “There’s a lot of pent-up anger, and Donald Trump let’s them release it,” she said.

Sanders may be indirectly helping Trump. At campaign rallies, he has repeatedly slammed Clinton on trade, listing it as a key area where they disagree. Sanders says he led opposition to NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China, which he says resulted in the loss of millions of middle-class jobs and “a race to the bottom.” His campaign, in a March 3 news release, dubbed Clinton the “outsourcer-in-chief.”

Clinton has been trying to distance herself from the 1990s-era policy. In the Flint debate, she tried to distinguish her record from that of her husband's. As a senator, she voted against a Central American trade agreement, the only multinational pact that came before her, she said. More recently, she’s come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

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Nearing closer to the nomination, Clinton has begun to discuss the role Sanders would need to play in unifying the party. During a town hall forum Monday in Grand Rapids, she talked extensively about how she encouraged her voters to back Barack Obama in 2008.

“I had a lot of passionate supporters who did not feel like they wanted to support then-Sen. Obama. I worked as hard as I could. I nominated him at the convention. I made the case, because he and I shared a lot of the same views,” she said.

“We have differences, but those differences pale in comparison to what we see going on with the Republicans right now,” said Clinton.

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Clinton’s supporters acknowledge a Michigan loss is unlikely to deter Sanders. Several testy exchanges in the Flint debate highlighted festering tensions between the two, and Sanders is flush with campaign donations to keep him going.

“I think Hillary Clinton will win Michigan,” said Dingell. “But I think Sen. Sanders plans on staying in this race for a while.”

Contributing: Nicole Gaudiano

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