The big story in Michigan is that Democrats turned out in force in the closely fought race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. It was a two point race that went down to the wire, won by Bernie by 20,000 votes out of 1.18 million cast.
But the conventional wisdom among Republicans is we're supposed to believe that there were enough large numbers of Democrats left who were energized to cross over and vote for Donald Trump to take him to victory over "real" Republicans like Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Marco Rubio.
This has to be the kookiest theory yet promoted by The Stupid Party.
I think Trump was chosen here by heretofore inactive Republican-leaning voters, not by Democrats.
God knows there's millions out there who never participate in elections. In Michigan we typically have trouble getting turnout to 20% of the voting age population. In presidential election years it averages 18.32%.
Turnout yesterday broke records going back before 1980, at 34%.
Republican turnout was up over 30% from 2012, and over 50% from 2008, but Democrat turnout was up a whopping 97% over 2008 when Hillary and Obama famously duked it out.
A total of 601,219 votes were cast in the 2008 Democrat Primary, but in 2016 1.18 million. (There was no Democrat primary here in 2012. It was a pro-forma caucus in which 195,058 votes were cast, the vast majority for the incumbent president Barack Obama.)
Democrats were too preoccupied yesterday fighting over Hillary and Bernie to care much about Donald Trump.
That's the good news for Trump supporters, and the bad news for his Republican opponents. Donald Trump is remaking the Republican Party with support from people who appreciate his issues and strong leadership instead of theirs: manufacturing jobs, illegal immigration and trade.
Yesterday they came out of the woodwork to vote for him.
