'The most important state': Sanders faces dire moment in Michigan showdown with Biden
(CNN)Bernie Sanders is again looking to Michigan to save his presidential bid.
Just as suddenly as the Democratic race narrowed to a one-on-one showdown between the Vermont senator and former Vice President Joe Biden, it's brought a primary that Sanders needs to win -- or his path to the Democratic nomination could quickly evaporate.
"Every state is terribly important, and I think coming Tuesday, maybe Michigan is the most important state," Sanders told reporters Friday in Detroit.
Four years ago, Sanders' stunning victory in Michigan slowed Hillary Clinton's march to the party's nomination and foreshadowed a struggle with working-class voters across the upper Midwest that would ultimately lead to President Donald Trump's election.
Tuesday's primary in the state will now test the ability of Sanders and Biden to win in a crucial general election battleground. It comes as the primary calendar turns toward states that appear to be more favorable to Biden. Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio -- all large states where Clinton beat Sanders in 2016 -- are voting next week, increasing the urgency for Sanders to deliver a trajectory-changing win in Michigan on Tuesday.
For Sanders, though, Michigan is also about something more fundamental than delegate math: The state cuts to the core of his mythos -- that he possesses a unique connection with the disaffected working-class voters who have abandoned Democrats in droves.
Owing to its must-win status, Sanders canceled plans to visit Mississippi, which also holds a primary Tuesday -- along with Idaho, Missouri, Washington and North Dakota's caucuses -- and could hand Biden a delegate lead that day, no matter what happens elsewhere. Instead, Sanders traveled early to Michigan to make his stand, with plans to hold four rallies in three days in a bid to recapture the momentum he'd built there four years ago.
2016 vs. 2020
Much has changed since 2016, though.
Michigan in 2018 elected one of the first two Muslim women to Congress with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent Sanders ally. But it also rejected a Sanders-endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate in favor of a more moderate primary candidate, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is now a co-chair of Biden's campaign. The Detroit suburbs have become part of a national realignment, with two moderate Democrats flipping GOP-held House seats there in the midterms.
Garlin Gilchrist, Michigan's lieutenant governor and the first African American to hold the position, said he voted for Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary -- but endorsed and is campaigning with Biden this year.
"It's a different race. It's a different candidate. Joe Biden wasn't on the ballot. There wasn't an appearance of someone who had come through for the people of Michigan in such specific and direct ways," Gilchrist said.