Three "virtual ties" now

Iowa, Massachusetts, and Michigan all fall into that category of "virtual tie" -- situations where, with proportional delegate allocation, Bernie and Hillary ended up coming away with just about the same number of delegates, regardless of who managed to actually come out just slightly ahead in the actual vote, a factor with little real meaning apart from the bragging rights.

But as we're seeing, bragging rights ain't bad. If Sanders were only going to be lucky enough to be on the winning side of one of these three, Michigan would be the one he'd want.

Iowa results are largely forgotten once New Hampshire rolls around, and even if he had benefited from the additional PR boost of an Iowa victory, it almost certainly would have done nothing to prevent the wind from being taken out of his sails in South Carolina. It might have helped get him a better result in Nevada, that's about it.

Massachusetts would have been downplayed as being another state in his home turf, we'd still be hearing of scant evidence of his being able to win major victories outside of New England. Really, whether he won 5 states on Super Tuesday or merely (as he did) 4 with a close 5th, there would not have been any substantial difference to the campaign overall.

This one, Michigan, is the one that provides the biggest boost... good geography, good population size and diversity, and good timing. It has everyone talking about the right things, just when Sanders people want them talking about them. It can't be explained away as relatively "insignificant" as an Iowa or MA win would more easily have been.

The math still favors Hillary, but yeah, delegates or not, this win was yuuge.