Favorable signs for Sanders in Wisconsin

Most of the media narrative from Wisconsin has focused on the dramatic split over Donald Trump in the Republican primary, and efforts of the party establishment to beat him there.

Yet the Democratic side features another installment of the increasingly combative fight between Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Pre-primary polls show Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist, with a modest lead.

Here are some things to consider Tuesday while watching the Democratic returns from the Badger State:

In a sense it's no surprise that Sanders is leading. Wisconsin has a tradition of progressive politics – including a long string of socialist mayors in its largest city, Milwaukee – and it is overwhelmingly white. Clinton's most loyal voters are African Americans. The state's population is a little over 6 percent black, and exit polls from the last contested Democratic primary, in 2008, found that African Americans were just 8 percent of those who voted.

Another factor in Sanders' favor: The primary is open to independents, one of the groups he does best with. The Vermonter led Clinton by 22 percentage points among independent voters who said they would likely vote in the Democratic primary, 58 percent to 36 percent in last week's Marquette University Law School poll. (the gold standard in Wisconsin.)

In his closing argument, Sanders has blasted Clinton for having supported free-trade agreements that he said have cost manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

"I am not a candidate who goes to the unions, goes to workers, then leaves and goes to a fundraiser on Wall Street," he said Monday in Janesville, tagging Clinton yet again for her deep ties to the financial industry. "You are family, and I have worked with unions my entire life." General Motors closed a plant there and moved 2,800 jobs to Mexico eight years ago.

Clinton has spent most of the final days of Wisconsin campaigning getting a head start on New York, which votes April 19. She once represented the state in the U.S. Senate. But she has argued that her brand of liberal values tempered by pragmatism makes her more electable.

"I think we need a nominee who's been tested and vetted already," Clinton said Saturday at a Democratic dinner in Milwaukee. "For 25 years they've thrown everything they could at me, but I'm still standing."

A solid victory in Wisconsin, which awards 82 delegates, would give a narrative boost to Sanders, who has seemed determined to campaign through California June 7. But Democrats' system of allocating delegates in proportion to a candidate's popular vote means that Clinton would still net an appreciable number, and Sanders might not erase much of his deficit in delegates.

Clinton's campaign seems to be expecting a loss. For one, she has not scheduled a campaign event for Tuesday night as the returns are reported. And campaign manager Robby Mook did some pre-spin in a memo to supporters posted on Medium.

Mook wrote: "The delegate math is on our side: Hillary Clinton has a lead of nearly 230 pledged delegates — and with each passing week, it's becoming increasingly unlikely that Senator Sanders will be able to catch up. In order to do so, Sanders has to win the four remaining delegate-rich primaries — New York, Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey — with roughly 60 percent of the vote. To put that in perspective: Sanders has thus far won only two primaries with that margin: Vermont and New Hampshire. Needless to say, the size and demographic makeups of New York, Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey are decidedly different than Vermont and New Hampshire."

All of that, Mook said, does not even count Clinton's cache of support from super delegates, party grandees who automatically go to the July convention in Philadelphia and can vote how they want, regardless of what their states' voters did.