Michigan Primary Takeaways: ‘Uncommitted’ speaks out

Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Donald J. Trump won the Michigan primary on Tuesday, as the president and his predecessor raced for a rematch in November.

But the results showed some of the fragility of the political coalitions they built in a critical state before the fall. Losing any shred of support is dangerous for both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden won Michigan in 2020 by about 150,000 votes, and Mr. Trump won it in 2016 by about 11,000 votes.

The results of Tuesday’s primaries carried extra weight because Michigan was the first state that plays a major role in the general election and held its primaries in 2024.

Here are four lessons from the results:

‘Uncommitted’ managed to get Biden’s attention.

When the movement to convince Democrats to vote “unfettered” began three weeks ago, the public goal was clear: to put enough pressure on Mr. Biden so that he would call for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.

Since then, top White House officials told Arab-American leaders in Dearborn, Michigan, that they regretted the administration’s response to the crisis. Mr. Biden called Israel’s military action “overblown.” And on the eve of the primaries, he said he hoped a ceasefire agreement would be reached within a week. (The view from Israel and Gaza suggested Mr Biden was a bit optimistic.)

And yet the strength of the “uncommitted” effort surprised the president’s campaign, which until this week did not anticipate the strength of anti-Biden sentiment among Michigan Democrats.

By the early hours of Wednesday, about 13 percent of primary voters had opted for “uncommitted” — a share that paled in comparison to Biden’s 81 percent, but represented more than 75,000 people in Michigan who took the trouble to voice their disapproval of the president to announce. .

The movement is now likely to spread to other states, many of which have the option for voters to choose “uncommitted” or “no preference” in their primaries. Listen to Michigan, the group that kicked off the state’s protest vote, is holding an organizing call for supporters in Minnesota, where voting takes place next week, and in Washington state, which holds its primaries on March 12.

“This is the only option we have to achieve democracy right now,” said Asma Mohammed, a progressive activist who is among the leaders of a new group called Uncommitted Minnesota. “We are against a Trump presidency, and we also want Biden to improve. If that means pushing him to his limits, that’s what it takes.”

The challenge for the Biden campaign will slow any perceived momentum after Michigan by those protesting his Gaza policy. As long as the war continues and the United States continues to send aid to Israel, Mr. Biden can do little to calm voters angry about the rising Palestinian death toll.

Both leaders have clear vulnerabilities.

Mr. Trump has long been the odds-on favorite to become the Republican nominee. Biden left little doubt that he would run for Democrats again.

Still, tens of thousands of Michiganders in both parties voted against their standard-bearers on Tuesday, a stark rejection that signals they could have trouble putting together a winning coalition in November. The saving grace for every man, as George W. Bush’s former top strategist Karl Rove recently vividly put it, is that “Only one can lose.”

Part of the reason Michigan’s results appear more damaging to Mr. Biden than Mr. Trump is the matter of expectations.

Ms. Haley has been campaigning against Trump for months, and her share of the Republican electorate has fallen from New Hampshire to South Carolina to Michigan.

But Biden breezed through his first two primaries in South Carolina and Nevada before a loosely organized group of Arab-American political operatives, with $200,000 and three weeks to spare, gained enough support that their efforts are likely to bring in delegates to the Democratic National Convention. .

“If the White House is listening, if our congressional leaders are listening, if our state leaders are listening, we need a change in direction or we risk the complete unraveling of American democracy in November,” Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said.

Biden should keep an eye on college towns.

It was not surprising to see “uncommitted” defeat Mr. Biden in Dearborn and Hamtramck, two of the Michigan cities with the highest concentrations of Arab Americans. Now that almost all votes have been counted, Dearborn gave 56 percent from his Democratic primary to “uncommitted.” In Hamtramck, “uncommitted” received 61 percent of the city’s Democratic vote.

Perhaps more worrisome for Mr. Biden was his appearance in Ann Arbor, a college town 30 miles (48 kilometers) to the west.

There, where most of the University of Michigan’s students and faculty live, “uncommitted” received 19 percent of the vote. In East Lansing, home to Michigan State University, “uncommitted” received 15 percent of the vote.

While no other battleground states have Arab-American communities as large as Michigan’s, they all have college towns where young, progressive voters are angry about U.S. support for Israel.

It’s in those places – Madison, Wisconsin; Athens, Georgia; Chapel Hill and Durham, NC; Tucson, Ariz.; and State College, Pennsylvania, among others – where Mr Biden faces a general election threat if he does not win overwhelming support and turnout among students in November.

Nikki Haley is still in it, but she’s not going to win.

Donald J. Trump won – again. Nikki Haley lost again.

At one point in the nominating calendar, the Michigan primary had the potential to be a brief but notable way station between the top four states and Super Tuesday.

But the lopsided results offered more of the same, with Mr. Trump dominating across Michigan and Ms. Haley on track for her weakest showing since the race narrowed to two candidates. She continues to march, with planned rallies and fundraisers in seven states and Washington, D.C., before Super Tuesday on March 5.

The month of February has been all about momentum, and Mr. Trump has it all. March is about delegates, and he has most of them.

But the race for delegates is about to accelerate sharply. In California alone, more delegates are at stake on March 5 than all the January and February contests combined.

Ms. Haley’s campaign called her share of the vote — she was below 30 percent as of early Wednesday — “a flashing warning sign for Trump in November.” But it was now a warning for her candidacy.

Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting from Dearborn, Michigan, and Alyce McFadden From New York.