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  • we do have breaking news right now.

  • ABC News can now project that Joe Biden is expected to win the Michigan Democratic primary.

  • This is huge news tonight.

  • Joe Biden, ABC News Can Project Will win Michigan Democratic Primary With 52% of the vote in, he has a double digit lead.

  • This is gonna change the makeup of the delegates.

  • This was the biggest hall tonight, and Joe Biden wins a state that Bernie Sanders won in a very headline worthy fashion four years ago.

  • This is gonna mean a lot for Joe Biden's momentum.

  • It's gonna mean a lot for, ah, battleground state Heidi Heitkamp.

  • This is This is the kind of news Democrats want.

  • Joe Biden wins here.

  • Voters stood by him, and Michigan is a state where it's gonna be a battleground come November.

  • And it's also a state where you have urban areas.

  • You have rural voters, you have college age voters, you have college towns.

  • And tonight it looks like it was Joe Biden's night.

  • Absolutely.

  • And I think that the other thing that you've got is you've got more momentum.

  • You know, Wisconsin, think about Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, all of those states that look a lot like Michigan.

  • I think that it's going to be very, very difficult for Senator Sanders toe overcome the momentum that you see with a double digit lead.

  • You know, I think last week we weren't even predicting that.

  • We're saying if Joe Biden can win, looks like he's gonna win Michigan with a very comfortable margin.

  • And let's go to Eva Pilgrim now.

  • In response to this win for Biden in Michigan, which was really a crucial win, a critical win for Joe Biden, his campaign was telling us earlier today they were expecting to win Michigan by a double digit lead.

  • They have done a lot of work here.

  • They've spent equal amounts of money to the Bernie Sanders campaign here, and they've made lots of visits here in the days leading up to this.

  • The thing you guys were talking about, that video where he talked to the auto worker Hiss supporters.

  • When you talk to them about Joe Biden and his interactions that sometimes us members of the media will deem to be in perfect, they look at that and they say, of course, that's Joe Biden.

  • They know exactly who he is they recognize that he is not a perfect man, and they don't expect him to be a perfect man.

  • They actually see that as something favorable.

  • They want him to be forceful and directs because they know that this is a person who will eventually have to take on President Trump.

  • And in order to do that, he is going to have to be somewhat aggressive.

  • You guys have talked about voter turnout.

  • His campaign, part of his stump speech at every event sent South Carolina, has been about the voter turnout.

  • How that voter turnout has been high in his favor, that people are coming out to support Joe Biden.

  • And we talked to people at events in the last week, two weeks.

  • Ah, lot of people tell us the reason that they have been swayed by Joe Biden is because they feel safe and secure with him.

  • They know who he is.

  • They know what to expect.

  • They know what they're getting.

  • There is no question about who Joe Biden is at what he will do, what he becomes president.

  • Guys are Eeva Pilgrim.

  • Thank you for that.

  • I just want to make a quick point about the preliminary exit poll that we have coming out of Michigan.

  • 64% of the voters there over 45 years old, which also does you largely in favor of Joe Biden.

  • Yeah, it looks like, at least for now, Corona virus and keep those those voters at home.

  • But all that data still coming in, I want to go over to Nate Silver now from our partners at Fivethirtyeight made.

  • As soon as we reported that news, I saw you just going to town on your keyboard.

  • There, I imagined in my in my mind you were just crunching some numbers there.

  • What happens to the Bernie Sanders campaign at this point?

  • What can you say?

  • I mean, that's partly up to Senator Sanders and what they want to do.

  • There are four states, a total, almost 600 delegates voting next week.

  • There is a debate on Sunday.

  • Clearly, he is not getting the results would put him on track or really that close The track for him to win the nomination would have to win Michigan by some March, and that you would think so.

  • It's a matter of can you have as big a shift as you had with his record shift toward bite in the past two weeks.

  • I mean, even then, by the time we get to next week, we'll have it had 60% delegates already voted so far.

  • So it's getting to be very, very late in the day for the senator from Vermont.

  • All right, Nate Silver said, You want to bring in our political team recline and Mary Alice Parks from Washington recline.

  • I want to go to you first.

  • Tonight we just projected Michigan.

  • That's gonna go to Joe Biden.

  • Ah, huge momentum win for him.

  • What does this mean for the state of the race?

  • In your opinion, I was texting with a Sanders ate earlier tonight and said, It's all there really is all about Michigan.

  • They were anticipating a rough night, but they were hoping against hope that they would pull it off in Michigan.

  • They thought that the ground game, the organization, the spending advantage that he had there would be worth a couple of points and put him over the edge.

  • That appears not to be the case tonight, and that's a maid is now recognizing that reality.

  • There's gonna be some regrouping in circles around the Sanders campaign.

  • They are pointing to that debate coming this weekend and, of course, the contest next week.

  • But the map doesn't get easier from here.

  • This was an absolute must win state for Bernie Sanders.

  • Ah, symbolically important.

  • Substantively important.

  • The biggest one on the map today, a big November battleground.

  • And to see that Joe Biden come in and start to eat away at the Sanders voters, White working class voters included is a devastating blow to Bernie Sanders campaign.

  • Mary Alice Parks.

  • You've covered the Sanders campaign inside and out.

  • You were there four years ago when he won this state in Michigan.

  • Your take tonight with Sanders losing Michigan.

  • Yet Michigan four years ago surprised the senator.

  • We were flying from Michigan to Florida.

  • We landed to the news that he had won in Michigan, and the team scrambled to find a podium for him to address the reporters.

  • They were thrilled.

  • They basically drank around the campfire all night, celebrating Michigan as the state that gave their campaign more life and more time four years ago.

  • And no doubt they were hoping for the exact same story out of tonight.

  • You know there were really two divides in the Democratic Party that they were hoping we're gonna play in their favor the age divide that I was talking about earlier, and that divide still is overwhelmingly playing in their favor.

  • But the other divide, frankly, was more of a class divide.

  • Ah, working class vote, a blue collar vote.

  • And as we've been talking about all night, that was really the vote that that propelled him to victory four years ago in Michigan.

  • But where Joe Biden is is really his most natural competitors in that space.

  • A real rival that is winning that vote this time.

  • Mary Alice Standby.

  • First, I do want to bring in Adam Green again from Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

  • Adam, I got a question for you.

  • So walk me through the strategy.

  • Now you said, You want to see that debate next week in Arizona?

  • It's gonna be one of the states that votes next Tuesday because you want to see that matchup, and that's what Bernie wants is, well, Bernie Sanders versus Joe Biden.

  • If Joe Biden is the eventual nominee, what is the benefit of possibly gutting him in a debate?

  • Yeah, there's no better thing, gutting him in a debate.

  • There was a benefit in having whoever the Democratic nominee is stand.

  • The test of time actually won a competent campaign.

  • No deal with the rigors of a debate in a campaign for more than a couple days.

  • It's been one week since Super Tuesday.

  • So look, we're not a Bernie Sanders endorsing group.

  • But we're someone that passionately wants to be Trump and were to be Trump.

  • We need someone who can go on a debate stage not, you know, lose their cool, not embarrassed themselves and survive afterwards.

  • That's honestly it.

  • I think I think Joe Biden would leave a stronger candidate against Trump if he does well in the debate against Bernie Sanders.

  • It's a good point.

  • Elizabeth Warren, you endorsed her.

  • What do you think Her next move is in this race?

  • You know, Elizabeth Warren had a very long year, and she deserves her time to figure out her her neck steps.

  • But what we already saw today is that she is taking a leadership role on this Corona virus situation.

  • I mean, she is calling out the corruption of the Trump administration, not allowing people to get tested, apparently now giving tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry for some reason on Do you know she's demanding that there be accountability as people get hurt?

  • Because Trump wants to keep the numbers low on how many people get tested and are diagnosed?

  • All right, I think that on issues like that, we will see and the economic downturn.

  • We will see a huge leadership role for Elizabeth Warren, and she will take the fight to Trump.

  • All right, Adam, thank you.

  • I do want to get Matt doubting on this breaking news.

  • Matt, we have less than two minutes before we have to take a network break.

  • Give me your senses.

  • Is this sort of another political earthquake in this campaign for president of the Democratic side?

  • I don't think it's an earthquake.

  • I think it's an aftershock from the earthquake from South Carolina and the earthquake happened.

  • And then now we've seen the ripple, affection aftershocks since that point in time.

  • I think there's been a perfect storm that's benefited Joe Biden, and I think you're Bernie Sanders after tonight has to really ask himself some serious questions.

  • I'm not convinced that debate will happen on Sunday.

  • I'm not convinced it will happen.

  • But if it does happen, Bernie Sanders has to ask himself, I'll go to that debate.

  • Do I go to that debate and try to rip into Joe Biden, which a lot of Democrats at this point in time, are gonna be very upset about because they're gonna think after tonight, he's gonna be the nominee or I do.

  • I go into that debate even if I do the debate and just present the sort of progressive argument and not attack Joe Biden.

  • So I think this thing is, it's moved across.

  • You couldn't have a better time.

  • And I think what we saw Tom is that the combination of Corona virus with South Carolina and with the melting stock down the Smith melting stock market cause voters to say, What leader do we want in a crisis?

  • And the leader?

  • They decided to choose in a crisis with somebody.

  • They viewed his calm and steady and experienced all of that benefited, as this way was moving all of that moment.

  • Benefit of Joe Biden.

  • All right.

  • Matt Dowd, on his perspective with the breaking news.

  • We've been following ABC News Project in Michigan.

  • Hi, everyone.

  • George Stephanopoulos here.

  • Thanks for checking on ABC News YouTube channel.

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  • Thanks for watching.

we do have breaking news right now.

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