Sanders in Michigan?

There's still a bunch of Wayne County (Detroit) still to report. But Clinton's margin is not very big there. If her margins stays where it is right now I suspect she loses. Really depends where in the county these votes are from. And I don't know the answer to that. Meanwhile, Sanders' margin is bizarrely stable at this point. It's been almost identical from 1% reporting to 40%. Right around Sanders 51% to Clinton 47% almost the whole time.

Late Update - 10:12 PM: The first big chunk of votes in Wayne County came in a few minutes ago and it tightened the race a lot in Clinton's favor. Sanders' lead is now down to about a point and a half. We now have around half the votes in from Wayne and Clinton has a margin there of about 20 points. If that percentage holds that could put her over the top. But there are other parts of the state still to come in where Sanders has sizable margins. This is going to be very close.

10:15 PM: Sanders is pushing his margin up again.

10:31 PM: Clinton's going to get a big chunk of votes out of Detroit at some point tonight. But Sanders is building up a pretty solid margin, maybe too big a margin for her to overcome even with a lot of votes in Detroit.

10:47 PM: There are a lot of Clinton votes almost certainly still to report in Wayne County. But Bernie Sanders has crept back to almost the 5 point margin he had earlier. That's a big margin to overcome, even with a very lopsided turnout in the last 15 or 20 percent of the vote. A bit hard for me to see her pulling this out. The only wildcard here is that we don't know which parts of Wayne County have reporter. So maybe there's a surprise ... a bit more of the vote just came in in Wayne and Clinton's margin has already gone down a bit. I just don't see this happening for her. Possible. But requires heroic margins at this point.

Trump Fugue

Trump: "I tell you, with the evangelicals, they get it. They get me. They understand me. I'll be the best thing that ever happened to them. I mean that. 100%."

The resurrection had its run. Times change.

This on the other hand is highly accurate (emphasis added) ...

He became hostile about two weeks ago and it didn't work. See, hostility works for some people, it doesn't work for everybody. Okay? No, but he became very hostile. You know what, it doesn't work for him. He was better. He would have been better off had he kept the original pitter patter going, but this didn't work

Trump Product Presser

Watching the Trump victory presser, you kind of get the sense that Donald Trump has momentarily forgotten he's running for president. He's obviously deeply deeply stung by all the talk about Trump Water, Trump Steaks, etc. They're all totally awesome. And now they're all set out on a table at Trump's victory speech. I cannot wait to see how things go at Trump's State of the Union.

Michigan

Not many votes in yet. But the Michigan results are very tight right now, with Sanders with a small lead. Outside of New Hampshire, Sanders' victories have been heavily weighted toward caucuses. This is a primary. Much more difficult to win with enthusiastic and well organized supporters. If he can manage a victory in Michigan that would be a big win for him. Live results here.

Late Update - 8:42 PM: Still very close but no votes in from Detroit. That may make it hard for Sanders to hold on.

8:45 PM: Is 'Tough Night for Marco Rubio' a new show on CNN? Hear it promo'd constantly every time we tune into CNN.

9:16 PM: So still fairly close in Michigan, with Sanders in a small but durable lead. And we're still waiting for the bulk of votes to come in from Detroit. But there's now a non-trivial number of votes in from there - about 15,000 votes. And Sanders has a clear lead. No idea where those votes come from. Maybe it's not representative. But Clinton needs a solid win in Wayne County to win the state.

9:27 PM: About 20% of precincts reporting in Wayne County and Clinton has moved into a small lead - 53% - 46%.

Hillary Takes Mississippi

Clinton declared winner in Mississippi. Early results show close race in Michigan.

Love This

MSNBC does impromptu interview with cross section of white male golfers on the links in Florida. Turns out not a strong Hillary crowd. Watch.

Didn't See That Coming

Two pieces of breaking news on the Oregon standoff: The local sheriff has ruled that the police shooting of standoff leader Lavoy Finicum was justified, but five FBI agents are under investigation for allegedly either lying about or covering up two shots that one of them fired at Finicum, but which apparently missed.

Not Going According To Plan

One measure of how far-fetched Mitt Romney's plan for strategic voting to deny Donald Trump a majority of delegates before the convention is: It may not survive the March 15 Florida primary, where a Marco Rubio defeat could prove fatal to the whole plan.

Breaking: Chaucer Scholar Analyzes Trump Attack Haiku

We've had some good emails to date on the Trump Attack Haiku. And if you follow my Twitter feed you'll know I've been experimenting with the form myself. But now we're really getting somewhere. TPM Reader KC is a Chaucer scholar and medievalist who wrote her dissertation on Middle English Alliterative meter (yes, that's a thing!) and she's done a close analysis of the Trump Attack Haiku, which is fascinating, hilarious and incisive in equal parts. (Yes, I'm basically in love. She had me at 'scansion'.) KC's analysis after the jump ...

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Blowin' Up

Rubio campaign goes off on Wolf Blitzer over CNN report that Rubio may not last until next week's Florida primary. Watch.

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Like Christie and Trump, desperate Senators prepare to become Ted Cruz's butler.

The Great Betrayal

There's a point I wanted to address about the GOP primaries and the Trump phenomenon that connects up with my piece this morning ("Lust for Destruction") and an earlier post on the GOP implosion and the concept of 'technical debt'. I was listening to a CPAC roundtable late last week (televised, I wasn't there) where the panelists, including The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes, discussed the basic division in the GOP today: between people who feel the party establishment has betrayed them and those who do not.

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Lust for Destruction

When people try to make sense of this topsy-turvy, norm-busting election year, one of the key mistakes they make is to assume that the dynamics that operate for Donald Trump in the Republican primary will operate in a general election. They won't. I'm not saying Trump can't win a national election. In a Clinton v Trump match-up I think anything from a shattering Trump defeat to a narrow Trump victory is possible. But many people now believe that Trump can defy political gravity - flouting conventions of propriety, embracing extremist positions, casually changing positions, all with no penalty. That won't work in a general election.

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Heil Trumpler

Donald Trump has attendees at Tampa rally pledge to vote for him on March 15th.

Trump on the Crowd Melees

The big takeaway from Donald Trump's press conference tonight was his push for Marco Rubio to get out of the race. But the most interesting part of the night was when CNN's Jim Acosta asked him if was going to take responsibility for or do something about the recurrent outbreaks of (so far low-level) violence at his rallies.

It got kind of a hairy few a few moments. And I thought it was 50-50 whether Trump would have security toss Acosta from the event or maybe have one of the guys from Duck Dynasty knock him around a bit. But I don't think either ended up happening.

It was a classic Trump answer, with several digressions and laugh lines - along with a few side points that were completely incomprehensible (see the reference to ten years ago). My favorite part was when he seemed to suggest that on a percentage basis barely anyone gets beaten up at his events. But I wanted to quote the whole exchange at length. So here it is after the jump ...

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