In 2008, Hillary Clinton swept the hardest hit of the Rust Belt states, with Barack Obama taking two on the fringe--his home state of Illinois and Wisconsin.

As the 2016 campaign unfolds, with Michigan the first Rust Belt state to vote, Bernie Sanders made an unexpected push to win by the slimmest of margins (49.9-48.2 with 97 percent reporting). All the major polls had Clinton winning--and winning big in Michigan.

Michigan hurts my own predictions:

Howard Dean, former Vermont governor and former DNC chair, has committed his superdelegate vote to Hillary Clinton, despite U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders winning Vermont 86.1 percent to Hillary Clinton's 13.6 percent.

Dean was confronted about this on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/GovHowardDean/status/706219827535462401

Current primary results have reportedly led GOP leaders to consider a contested convention if Donald Trump falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to qualify for the nomination.

Three months into the first stage of the presidential election process, the field has narrowed to four candidates on the Republican side and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are battling it out for each state on the Democratic side. In a recent poll, IVN found that if the election were held today, Bernie Sanders would carry the independent vote in a landslide.

Despite increased rumors and evidence of a possible Michael Bloomberg presidential run, the former mayor of New York announced Monday that he is going to stay out of the race. Bloomberg said that a three-way race between him and the Republican and Democratic nominees would possibly benefit only one person: Donald Trump.

As I previously argued that Bernie Sanders’ proposal for a universal single payer health care plan needed work, his proposal for tuition-free college is also on the right track, but could benefit from some modifications. However, it is far from being “pure fantasy” as described in a recent editorial written by Jay Stooksberry on IVN.

After he was criticized for claiming that he could force the United States military to break the current law banning torture methods like waterboarding, Donald Trump backtracked his comments and said instead that he would like to change the laws to include waterboarding “at a minimum.”

In an interesting technical maneuver, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has transferred his personal website from company servers to an independent host.  This move, remarkably similar to those taken prior to his successful bids for mayor, appears to indicate a step toward an independent bid for the presidency.

Up until mid-February, MikeBloomberg.com had been hosted on a server run by Bloomberg, L.P. -- Bloomberg's financial information company. The website is now hosted by Amazon.com, which provides web hosting and cloud services.

Following the weekend's primaries and the upcoming votes on Tuesday, many eyes remain fixed on a presidential candidate who has been highly touted, but has delivered few victories, leading to concerns about his campaign's viability.

Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a candidate lauded as the future of the Republican Party, has failed to break through in this election cycle. As more critical elections approach, the senator could be left questioning the justification for his campaign.

With problems ranging from millions uninsured to unsustainable liabilities, there are many obstacles to resolving the health care crisis. The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) along partisan lines has been a savior for some and a nightmare for others, generally indicating that it's less than ideal.

The United States is one of the few developed countries that doesn't offer some sort of universal health care and yet, even discussing such a system generates partisan bickering.