Clinton Campaign Does Damage Control After Sanders' Huge Upset

Clinton Campaign Does Damage Control After Sanders' Huge Upset

When the polls opened in Michigan Tuesday morning, Bernie Sanders did not have a lot to be optimistic about. His campaign was at a clear disadvantage: The Real Clear Politics average of polls had Hillary Clinton leading in the state by 20 points — and none of the surveys taken this year had him losing by anything less than 10 percentage points.

So when Sanders won Michigan by a point and a half, he had much to celebrate; one prominent number-cruncher called it "one of the greatest upsets in modern political history." The Sanders campaign sent out a triumphant email repeating that claim, and promising Michigan was not an outlier. "[W]e're seeing the same kind of come-from-behind momentum all across America," it said.

Michigan was both a big win for Sanders, and a huge loss for pollsters. FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver could find just one other contest in which the polls were so wrong: New Hampshire, in 1984, when averages had Walter Mondale up by 17 points, and Gary Hart pulled out a nine-point win instead.

It was the kind of magical victory that Sanders has been promising supporters really can happen — but it was also a narrow victory, and the pragmatic Clinton campaign was quick to point out that it doesn't put much of a dent in the massive pledged-delegate deficit Sanders still has to make up.