The predictable and resounding victories of Joe Biden (with 81.4% of the vote) and Donald Trump (with 68.1%) in the Michigan primaries were not in question tonight. All attention was focused on the weaknesses of the two clear favorites in this key Midwestern state, which voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, swung to Trump in 2016 and voted Democratic again in 2020, with a Biden’s tight victory by a margin of 2.78% of the votes.
The state with the largest number and percentage of Arab and young voters in the country – the two groups most opposed to Israel’s offensive in Gaza – has tonight placed the first major electoral thermometer on the role of the White House in the Middle East. Groups of progressive and Arab voters have organized a protest vote against Biden in recent weeks, calling to vote “not declared” (or blank vote) in the Michigan primaries. They had set the goal of reaching 10%, a figure they have surpassed, with 12.7% of the electorate. In total, around 75,000 votes, half the margin of 150,000 with which Biden beat Trump in 2020 in this state.
On the eve of the vote, Biden announced on Monday that negotiations for a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza were “close” to reaching an agreement and conveyed his “hope” that it will arrive “next Monday.” But he has not been able to stop the vote of punishment from pro-Palestinian sectors, dissatisfied with the president’s support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, since the conflict escalated on October 7. Since the Hamas attacks in southern Israel, which left 1,200 dead, the Jewish state has claimed the lives of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza and forced the displacement of some two million people.
The protest vote in Michigan, which in the regions with the highest concentration of Arabs exceeds 50%, shows Biden’s weakness, which is also manifested within his party with internal divisions between the progressive and centrist sectors. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only member of the legislature of Palestinian origin, was “proud” yesterday to have voted blank in the primaries. “We must protect our democracy,” Tlaib said in a video released by Listen to Michigan, one of the groups organizing the protest vote.
“When 74 percent of Michigan Democrats support a ceasefire and yet President Biden does not listen to us, this is the way we have in our democracy to demand that they listen to us,” said the congresswoman. Another group that has promoted “undeclared” voting is Our Revolution, closely linked to the base of followers of progressive senator and former candidate Bernie Sanders.
The 12.7% of blank ballots does not imply, by any means, a transfer of votes to Trump, nor does it mean that this electorate will abstain from voting for Biden in November. But it does show a trend and generates concern: the situation in Gaza could complicate re-election for Biden, who is already below Trump in voting intention in five of the six swing states, such as Michigan.
In the case of Trump, who is advancing steadily toward his party’s nomination after five comfortable victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan, the results also show weakness. The Republican Party is divided between its loyal base of followers and the moderates, who opt for Haley (in Michigan, by 26.7%, much lower than the 39.5% in South Carolina), and who in polls Exit ballots show their fed up with Trump. The Republican will need to unite the party if he wants to win the election and convince his critics not to stay home in November.
This Tuesday’s primaries have been the last electoral event prior to the decisive date of Super Tuesday, March 5, where 17 states and territories will decide around a third of the delegates sent to the national conventions, which will elect in July and August the candidates of each party for the White House. Tonight, only 139 delegates have been distributed in the Democratic case and 16 in the Republican case (another 39 will be decided in assemblies on March 2), of the total of 4,672 Democratic delegates and 2,429 Republicans who will vote in the national conventions.