The predictable and landslide victories of Joe Biden (with 81.4% of the vote) and Donald Trump (with 68.1%) in the Michigan primary were not in question on Tuesday night. All attention was on the weaknesses of the two clear front-runners 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 Biden narrowly winning by a margin of 2.78 points.
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 been the first major electoral thermometer on the role of the White House in the Middle East. Groups of progressive voters and of Arab origin had organized a protest vote against Biden in recent weeks and called for a “non-declared” vote (or blank vote) in the Michigan primaries. They had set themselves the goal of reaching 10%, a figure they exceeded, with 13.2% of the electorate. In total, nearly 101,000 votes, more than expected.
On the eve of the vote, Biden had announced that negotiations for a prolonged cease-fire in Gaza were “close” to the agreement and conveyed his “hope” that it would arrive “next Monday”. But this announcement has not been able to stop the vote of punishment by the pro-Palestinian sectors, unhappy with the support of the mandate to the Israeli Prime Minister, Beniamin Netanyahu, since the attack of October 7 went to greater dimensions. Since the attacks by Hamas in the south of Israel, which caused 1,200 deaths, the Israeli state has killed 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza and caused the forced displacement of some two million people.
The protest vote in Michigan, which in the districts with the highest concentration of Arabs exceeds 50%, shows a weakness of Biden, 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” to have voted blank in the primaries. “We have to protect our democracy,” Tlaib said in a video released by Listen to Michigan, one of the groups organizing the protest vote.
“When 74% of Michigan Democrats support a ceasefire and yet President Biden won’t listen to us, this is the way we have in our democracy to demand that they listen to us,” said the congressman Another of the groups that have promoted the “undeclared” vote is Our Revolution, closely linked to the base of supporters of the progressive senator and ex-candidate Bernie Sanders.
The 13.2% of blank ballots does not imply a transfer of votes to Trump or that this electorate abstains from voting for Biden in November. But it does show a trend and generates concern: the situation in Gaza could complicate the re-election of Biden, who is already below Trump in voting intentions in five of the six swing states (pendulum states), such as Michigan.
In the case of Trump, who is marching steadily toward his party’s nomination after five comfortable victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan, the results also exhibit weakness. The Republican Party is divided between its base of followers and the moderates, who opt for (in Michigan, by 26.7%, much more in South Carolina, by 39.5%), and that in surveys on foot of ‘urna show boredom for Trump. The Republican will need to unite the party if he wants to win the election and convince his critics not to abstain.
Tuesday’s primaries were the last electoral date before the decisive date of Super Tuesday, March 5, in which 17 states and territories will decide about a third of the delegates sent to the national conventions, which they will choose in July and August the candidates of each party for the White House. This Tuesday, only 139 delegates were distributed in the Democratic case and 16 in the Republican case (some 39 more will be decided in assemblies on March 2), of the 4,672 Democratic and 2,429 Republican delegates who will vote at the national conventions.
