Vote reveals serious worries for contenders
US President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump won the Democratic and Republican primaries in Michigan by huge margins – but there are serious problems for both candidates lurking under the surface.
The primaries were a stress test in a swing state for both campaigns. Biden and Trump are wrestling with dissatisfaction within their parties even as they appear poised to win their nominations.
Trump defeated Nikki Haley by his widest margin to date on Wednesday in the Michigan primary, crushing her by 68% to 27%.
Biden, meanwhile, won the Democratic primary by an even more overwhelming margin – but 13% of voters marked their ballots “uncommitted” following a campaign to persuade voters to not to support Biden in protest at his support for Israel and his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Many Democrats are furious with Biden for failing to demand a halt to Israel’s war in Gaza – especially in Michigan, which has one of the biggest Arab-American populations in the country.
Trump has faced a bloc of voters in primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan – the three states where he’s had one-on-one matchups with Haley – who refuse to support him, although the percentage of such voters has declined as each state has voted.
While Trump has won every primary so far, Haley’s ability to keep winning so many votes even though she lacks a clear path to the nomination raises questions about how many of her voters will back
Trump in November.
Trump’s relative weakness is notable because he could essentially be viewed an incumbent, with a longer track record in the White House than Biden’s. But he is also under indictment in federal and state court on charges of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, among other counts.
“Joe Biden is losing about 20% of the Democratic vote today, and many say it’s a sign of his weakness in November,” Haley said. “Donald Trump is losing about 35% of the vote. That’s a flashing warning sign for Trump in November.”
Michigan was also a warning sign for Haley.
In other states, she has run strongest in places with lots of university-educated voters. But she failed to win a single county in Michigan, losing even Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor and where 57% of adults 25 and older have bachelor’s degrees.
Mark Tisdel, a Michigan state representative who endorsed Haley, said before the polls closed that if she ran at least as strong as she did in her home state of South Carolina – where she won 39% of the vote – it would be a victory.
“I’d like to see her stay in as long as possible,” Tisdel said. “President Trump faces several challenges ahead of him. There are all sorts of landmines out there that he could step on.”
More than 100,000 Democratic primary voters marked their ballots “uncommitted”, far exceeding the modest goal of 10,000 votes set by Listen To Michigan, the group that organised the campaign.
Still, not everyone who voted
“uncommitted” did so to protest Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.
Armenian-Americans waged their own campaign to convince voters to mark “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s support for Azerbaijan, which launched a military offensive in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region last year. The region had been under the control of Armenian separatists for decades. “The response has been overwhelming,” said Dzovinar Hatsakordzian, who organised the effort. The Armenian National Committee of America estimates that Michigan is home to about 72,000 Armenian-Americans.
Biden allies pointed out that more than 10% of Democratic primary voters in Michigan marked their ballots “uncommitted” rather than voting for President Barack Obama when he ran for re-election in 2012, despite the absence of a protest campaign.
They also said it was impossible to know how many “uncommitted” voters were casting ballots because of anger at Biden.
“It could be the war,” said Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, which has backed Biden’s handling of the war. “It could be Azerbaijan. It could be
concerns about Biden’s age. There could be myriad reasons that people are voting uncommitted.”
Butthegroupsbehindthe“uncommitted” campaign hailed the vote as a victory and promised to fight on.
“We’ve thrown down a marker in Michigan,” said Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, a group that grew out of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign and backed the “uncommitted” effort – even though Sanders disavowed it.
California Congressman Ro Khanna, a member of the Biden campaign’s advisory board, said Democrats needed to listen to Michiganders if the president wanted to carry the state in November.
“They’re saying that we need to make changes in foreign policy to earn back the trust of the community. And if we don't, I fear that we won't win the state.”
Biden tacitly acknowledged the work ahead in Michigan following the result. “This fight for our freedoms, for working families, and for democracy is going to take all of us coming together,” he said. “I know that we will.” –