Posted on 02/28/24
| News Source: The Hill
President Biden faced his first challenging day in the Democratic primary process Tuesday as Michigan voters went to the polls.
The problem for the president was not the token opposition from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) but, rather, the push for a protest vote over Biden’s vigorous support for Israel during its assault on Gaza.
The protest campaign, advocating for people to vote “uncommitted,” had a solid night. By 11:30 p.m. EST, it had racked up more than 50,000 votes, or about 14 percent of all ballots cast.
Those numbers are sure to grow, with most votes in Wayne County — home to Detroit and Dearborn — still to be counted.
On the Republican side, former President Trump won as expected. Trump had 67 percent of the vote at 11:30 p.m., compared to 27 percent for his last remaining rival, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Here are the main takeaways from the primaries.
The Democratic primary was not a catastrophe for Biden — he got about 80 percent of the vote, after all — but it was worrying.
In a battleground state where his margin of error in November will be slim, he bled tens of thousands of votes.
There was also chatter Tuesday evening about activists in other states trying to replicate what the “Listen to Michigan” campaign pulled off in the Wolverine State.
That could be an uphill climb in places where Arab Americans are not such a large share of the population. In Michigan, there were also prominent voices — most notably Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (D) — calling for an “uncommitted” vote.
The White House has been seeking to persuade voters it is at least hearing their concerns.
Earlier Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged the conflict in Gaza was “deeply painful” for many Arab Americans and said the president “cares about what that community is feeling very deeply.”
But other voices emphasize how dissent over Biden’s policies extends beyond Arab Americans.