Before Pennsylvania votes, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders face a similar test in Michigan

FLINT, Mich. — The Democratic presidential nomination, and perhaps the presidency itself could come down to places like this: a troubled post-industrial city with a large African American population that tends to vote Democratic but went to the polls in fewer numbers than usual in 2016.

That’s why over the last two days, with the race for the Democratic nomination suddenly tilting toward former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Bernie Sanders desperate to stop his momentum, both candidates came to this long-declining city with some of their most high-profile surrogates. Ahead of Michigan’s primary Tuesday, they each tried to woo the African American voters here who, in South Carolina and other states, have reshaped the race by siding with Biden.

The implications go beyond this one state. Michigan hosts the first primary of the three so-called blue wall states — along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that President Donald Trump cracked in 2016 to effectively seal the election.

“Michigan is an important contest, not just for the Democratic primary, because the outcome of Michigan in November may determine who the next president of the United States is going to be,” Biden told a small group of invited guests at an appearance in Flint on Monday afternoon.

Demographically and politically, Michigan has much in common with Pennsylvania, and could provide some clues about the Keystone State, which will not vote until late April.

Both are swing states that have historically supported Democrats for president, but went to Trump by the narrowest of margins in 2016. Both have long manufacturing traditions that have eroded. Both have a mix of big liberal cities (Philadelphia, Detroit), conservative rural regions, and affluent suburbs with more moderate voters. Their per capita incomes are nearly identical. Both are older and whiter than the country as a whole, but also have significant black populations that can play a major role in elections.

» READ MORE: Pennsylvania is critical in 2020. Here’s how Trump could win or lose it.

Over the last several days, Biden and Sanders have each made the case that they are best suited to winning back Michigan and states like it.

Sanders visited Flint on Saturday before holding a Sunday rally attended by more than 10,000 roaring, mostly young, supporters at the University of Michigan.

“Tuesday is a very, very important day and Michigan is the most important state” to vote that day, Sanders said in the plaza at the heart of the campus in Ann Arbor, where he decried the lead crisis in Flint and “crumbling schools” in Detroit and elsewhere.

It will send 125 delegates to the Democratic national convention, the most of any of the six states voting Tuesday.

With Biden surging, Michigan opens a two week stretch that could decide the nomination. A big victory here for the vice president could presage the outcome in the Midwestern states of Illinois and Ohio, which vote next week, along with Florida, and could leave him with an insurmountable delegate lead.

Voters here in a state long synonymous with auto-making fondly recalled Biden’s role as the point man in rescuing the industry after the financial crisis.

“I’m a son of a Local 651 retiree, and because of Vice President Biden my father’s pension was honored,” said Glenn Cotton, a Flint lawyer, referring to the United Auto Workers’ local.

“When we were on the ropes, when our auto industry was struggling, who had our backs? Barack Obama and Joe Biden,” said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Biden supporter speaking later at a Detroit rally.

At the same event, however, a protester disrupted Biden’s speech by holding up a sign decrying NAFTA, the trade deal he supported and that Sanders blames for decimating U.S. jobs. Climate change protesters followed.

Recent polls show Biden ahead in Michigan by double digits, including one from Monmouth University released Monday in which the former vice president was supported by 51% of likely primary voters, to 36% for Sanders. Sanders, the survey found, was struggling with some of the same constituencies that powered him in 2016.

Yet polls also showed Sanders badly losing in the 2016 Democratic primary in Michigan — just before he pulled off a major upset to beat Hillary Clinton, showing strength with working-class voters and, in hindsight, exposing the first signs of her weakness in the kinds of places that would cost her the general election.

The way Edward Jones figures it, Flint is where Clinton lost Michigan.

In this city, the birthplace of General Motors now marked by abandoned factories and homes, and a tainted water supply, voters didn’t come out for Clinton the way they had for past Democrats.

“She could have won the state in Flint or Detroit,” said Jones, 50, a Flint resident who supports Biden. “Nobody in Flint and Detroit really voted.”

Compared to four years before, Clinton’s 2016 vote total fell by 26,000 in Genesee County, home to Flint, and nearly 76,000 in Wayne County, where Detroit sits. She lost Michigan to Trump by fewer than 11,000 votes.

Sanders and Biden have leaned heavily in recent days on surrogates who could rouse people of color, particularly African Americans.

In Flint, Biden was joined by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who previously criticized Biden’s record on race, but on Monday rallied around him to try to help him seal the nomination.

» READ MORE: Cory Booker endorses Joe Biden for president. ‘He is the person to unify us.’

“A lot of people are waking up to the reality, African American voters in the South, African American voters here in Detroit, they have played a pivotal role in my entire lifetime in choosing a Democratic nominee,” Booker said on CBS Monday morning, shortly after announcing his support for Biden.

Booker later appeared alongside the former vice president at a rally in Detroit, where Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) also joined and a thumping high school marching band fired up the crowd.

Sanders has rolled out support from Harvard University professor and activist Cornel West, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, and high-profile liberal Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Detroit and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Michigan is 14% African American, slightly higher than the 13.4% national average. In Pennsylvania 12% of the population is black.

Sanders, in 2016, upset Clinton in rural areas and suburbs, but lagged in cities with large African American populations, such as Flint, Detroit, and Saginaw. He has worked since then to build a better rapport with black voters, but African Americans have recently powered Biden to a string of victories.

Jones, the Flint resident, echoed many black voters at Biden’s events who referred to his time as the top lieutenant for President Barack Obama, and also said Biden is the candidate who can best win moderate voters. “I don’t think Bernie could put together the same coalition as Biden," he said.

Sanders supporters, meanwhile, said the Vermont senator offers a welcomed excitement with his vision of free public college, Medicare for All, and other programs. Many in the crowd in Ann Arbor told stories of crushing student loan debt, or fears that one big medical bill could wipe them out.

“I went to college when you could afford it working part time, and I can’t imagine kids going to college nowadays,” said Paula Harrington, 54, of Swartz Creek, near Flint.

The Sanders campaign is also hoping for a strong showing among the state’s large Arab American community. Tareq Yaqub, 29, who is of Palestinian heritage, praised the way Sanders has criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. As a psychiatrist, he said, he has seen far too many people who can’t get treated because the costs are too high, and many doctors don’t accept insurance because the payments are too low.

“I don’t want the status quo,” said Yaqub, of Ann Arbor. “I want a vision we can believe in for our children and grandchildren.”