Biden wins Michigan primaries but rebuked by Gaza protest votes

DEMOCRATS angered by the U.S. government’s ongoing support for Israel issued a sharp rebuke of President Joe Biden, who easily won the Democratic presidential primary in Michigan on Tuesday.

A protest vote that opposed Biden’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza exceeded organizers’ expectations.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, won the state’s Republican presidential primary by a large margin, strengthening his grip on the party’s White House nomination as Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival, came in a distant second.

Although Biden and Republican former President Trump had been expected to easily win their separate party primaries, the vote count for both was being closely watched for signs of wavering support.

In Michigan, home to a large Arab American constituency, Democratic voters had been urged to mark their primary ballots as “uncommitted” on Tuesday in protest at Biden’s Gaza policy.

With almost half of Democratic votes counted, the number of “uncommitted” voters was more than 58,000, according to Edison Research, far exceeding the target of 10,000 that protest organizers had hoped for.

Many in Michigan’s Arab American community who backed Biden in 2020 are angry, as are some progressive Democrats, over Biden’s support for the ongoing war on Gaza, where Israel has killed nearly 30,000 people.

“Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations. Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom who voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza,” the Listen to Michigan campaign, which urged people to vote uncommitted, said in a statement.

Campaign organizers vowed to take what they called their antiwar agenda to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

Michigan pollster Bernie Porn said it remained to be seen how big of an issue the Middle East would be for Biden in November when the situation could look different.

In a statement late Tuesday, Biden said: “I want to thank every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great,” he said.

The statement made no mention of Gaza or the “uncommitted” vote.

“Donald Trump is threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution,” Biden said.

Partial returns showed Biden and Trump with solid overall leads. With nearly half the estimated Democratic vote counted, Biden had 80% support, with “uncommitted” getting 13%. With 58% of the estimated Republican vote counted, Trump had 67% support to Haley’s 27%, Edison Research said.

Michigan routinely offers an “uncommitted” option as a way of questioning whether a named candidate has the support of the party’s base. It could not be determined how many of those votes were protesting Biden’s Gaza policy.

When former Democratic President Barack Obama ran for re-election in 2012, he faced about 21,000 “uncommitted” voters in Michigan’s primary that year. Biden faced substantially more.

Michigan is expected to play a decisive role in the head-to-head Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, a likely rematch between Biden and Trump.

It is a battleground state that could swing toward either party. Biden beat Trump in Michigan by just 2.8 percentage points in the 2020 election.