Donald Trump easily defeated Nikki Haley in the Michigan Republican primary, dominating his last remaining rival in nearly every part of the state. But there's were some clear warning signs in the results for the Trump campaign.
In the three states where he had one-on-one match ups with Haley — New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan — there's a solid bloc of Republican voters who refuse to support him.
As Nikki Haley noted in her concession speech last night: "Joe Biden is losing about 20 percent of the Democratic vote today, and many say it's a sign of his weakness in November. Donald Trump is losing about 35 percent of the vote. That's a flashing warning sign for Trump in November."
Trump's weakness is notable because he's essentially running as the incumbent in the GOP primaries with a track record even longer than Biden.
Perhaps more important is that Trump underperformed the public polls again. He received 68.2% of the vote in Michigan as compared to his FiveThirtyEight polling average of 78.7%. It's the fourth consecutive race where Trump has underperformed the polls.
It's not clear what's happening here, but if polls are overestimating Trump's share of the vote it could call into question the general election polling showing him leading Biden.
Media narratives can be annoying but they're a fact of life in politics. More than 100,000 Democratic voters in Michigan primary voted for "uncommitted," many as part of an organized protest of the Biden administration's policies toward Israel and the war in Gaza.
Listen to Michigan, the group organizing the protest, had floated 10,000 as their target for uncommitted votes. In retrospect, it was an easy bar to clear but it set news media expectations for the protest vote. Whatever push back there was from the Biden campaign fell on deaf ears. That's why the headlines last night were about "shattered expectations" and "grabbing Biden's attention."
The reality of the vote was that roughly 13% of Michigan Democrats voted uncommitted. When Barack Obama sought re-election in 2012, 11% of Michigan Democrats voted for "uncommitted" instead of for the incumbent. That's obviously not a significant difference, but the expectations had been set in advance by the protest organizers.
The story was further complicated by the inherent difficulty in interpreting a protest vote. Sending Biden a message in a primary — especially one he was always going to win handily — is a chance to make your voice heard without any downside repercussions. In addition, voting uncommitted is an chance to register general discontent, not necessarily to protest any particular policy.
So while reports of the uncommitted vote were probably overblown last night, there was an important takeaway for the Biden campaign: Roughly 75% of Democratic primary voters in Arab American communities chose uncommitted over the president. That's well beyond what you might expect in a normal race.
New York Times: "In the early hours of Wednesday, roughly 13 percent of primary voters had chosen 'uncommitted' — a share that paled next to Mr. Biden's 81 percent, but represented more than 75,000 people in Michigan who made the effort to lodge their disapproval of the president."
"The movement is now likely to spread to other states, many of which have an 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, which votes next week, and Washington State, which holds its primary on March 12."
The uncommitted protest vote against President Biden in the Michigan Democratic primary is going to come in at around 13%, neither an unmitigated disaster nor a trifling annoyance.
TPM's Josh Marshall: It remains the case that the Israel-Hamas war has been highly divisive for the Democratic coalition. The Biden campaign will need to work hard to reunite it going into November. That applies to the Arab-American community, the Muslim-American community and to a lesser but real degree young and non-white voters more generally. This is especially the case in Michigan which has a substantial Arab-American community, is always close in presidential elections and is a must win. Even limited disaffection is a big deal.
John Podhoretz: "Haley is running in case Trump loses. She will have been the last Republican standing…"
"The person who can say "I told you so" in that case, and simultaneously offer a new path to the future, will be Nikki Haley. Maybe she can't be the nominee in 2028. Maybe the GOP base will decide she's just a raven-headed Liz Cheney and demonize her and drive her out. Could happen. But if Trump is not president on January 20, 2025, the party will be in pieces and Haley will be the most famous Republican to have delivered the warning. So my theory is that this is what she's running to be."
"The behind-the-scenes whisper campaign about who Donald Trump will pick as a running mate has turned into an all-out public talent show. And free from the political concerns he faced in 2016, one of the most important factors for this year's selection will be loyalty to Trump and his philosophy," NOTUS reports.
Said Trump ally Matt Schlapp: "Look, the Pence model is dead. I don't believe he'll turn to the Pence model again. He's gonna pick somebody who's really a different type of person."
Ryan Binkley (R) "ended his longshot presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump on Tuesday, after failing to gain traction in any of the early nominating states," Politico reports.
"It came at a high cost. He loaned himself more than $10 million and only earned just more than 2,000 votes across the four early-state nominating contests. In New Hampshire and South Carolina, he came in behind candidates who had already dropped out."
Marianne Williamson (D) announced that she is "unsuspending" her presidential campaign, claiming American voters are "watching a car crash in slow motion" with the current candidates, The Hill reports.
OREGON 5TH DISTRICT. State Rep. Janelle Bynum on Monday publicized an endorsement from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who represents the neighboring 3rd District, ahead of the May Democratic primary for the 5th. Bynum already had the backing of Gov. Tina Kotek and Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Andrea Salinas in her bid to take on freshman Republican Rep. Lori Chavez DeRemer.
NEW YORK 3RD DISTRICT. Air Force veteran Greg Hach, who had previously sought to challenge George Santos in the GOP primary, just became the first Republican to announce a bid against Democratic Rep.-elect Tom Suozzi. Hach raised $100,000 and self-funded another $200,000 during his short-lived campaign before getting passed over by local party leaders in favor of Nassau County Legislator Mazi Pilip, who lost to Suozzi 54-46 in a special election earlier this month.
NEW JERSEY 3RD DISTRICT. Assemblyman Herb Conaway won the support of the Democratic Party in Burlington County over the weekend, entitling him to favorable placement on ballots in the June 4 primary. Conaway beat his nearest competitor, Assemblywoman Carol Murphy, in a 70-20 rout, two weeks after winning a similar blowout in Monmouth County. Together, the two counties make up 77% of the population in the 3rd District, which Rep. Andy Kim has left open to pursue a bid for Senate. The balance is in Mercer County, which has yet to issue an endorsement.
COLORADO 4TH DISTRICT. Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon has announced that he'll stay out of the June primary to replace his fellow Republican, retiring Rep. Ken Buck.
Logan County Commissioner Jerry Sonnenberg publicized an endorsement on Wednesday from former Sen. Cory Gardner, who previously represented older incarnations of the 4th District, for the June GOP primary. Also in Sonnenberg's corner are former Sens. Wayne Allard and Hank Brown, though it's been decades since either of their names appeared on a ballot.
NORTH CAROLINA 10TH DISTRICT. Journalist Bryan Anderson flags that outside groups have spent over $500,000 to promote firearms manufacturer Pat Harrigan, who was the GOP's 2022 nominee for the old 14th District, ahead of next week's busy primary to replace retiring Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry in the safely red 10th. Almost all of the spending comes from two groups: The Koch's Americans for Prosperity and Elect Principled Veterans Fund, which is affiliated with the super PAC With Honor.
Harrigan was running for the revamped 14th until McHenry unexpectedly decided to retire in December, a switch that seems to have helped him evade fire from outside groups. While super PACs spent almost $880,000 against Harrigan last year when he was state House Speaker Tim Moore's only serious obstacle to victory, they haven't followed him to his new district.
NEW JERSEY 8TH DISTRICT. A new poll for Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla finds a very different state of play in New Jersey's 8th Congressional District compared with a recent survey from Rep. Rob Menendez of the state's June 4 Democratic primary. Bhalla's internal, conducted by GQR, puts Menendez up just 44-41, a far cry from Menendez's 46-24 lead in the incumbent's polling from TargetSmart.
One difference between the two surveys, however, is that Menendez also tested an underfunded third candidate, businessman Kyle Jasey, who took just 6%; Bhalla's poll didn't include him. A memo from GQR's Anna Greenberg further argues that her firm sampled likely voters and claims that the congressman's poll only surveyed registered voters.
But Menendez's pollster, Ben Lazarus, pushed back on that characterization in remarks to the Hudson County View's John Heinis. Lazarus says that respondents were "screened for their likelihood to vote in the primary" and called Greenberg's assessment of TargetSmart's sample "completely inaccurate."
ALABAMA 1ST DISTRICT. The Club for Growth has launched a $580,000 TV buy to help Rep. Barry Moore fend off fellow incumbent Jerry Carl in the March 5 Republican primary, an ad campaign that comes more than three months after Moore insisted he wouldn't "accept support" from the well-funded group. But Moore, as we explained at the time, may have issued this public disavowal to stay on the good side of Donald Trump, whose on-again, off-again feud with the Club was very much "on" last year.
Politico reported earlier this month that Club head David McIntosh and Trump have again made peace, though Moore doesn't appear to have said anything new about the Club. However, independent expenditure organizations like the Club's School Freedom Fund affiliate don't need a candidate's permission to get involved and in fact cannot legally seek it.
The Club, of course, is behaving like there never was any feud: Its opening commercial promotes Moore as an ardent Trump ally, complete with a clip of him proclaiming, "Go Trump!" Carl goes unmentioned in the script, though his image appears alongside Mitch McConnell's as the narrator attacks "weak-kneed RINOs." The buy comes shortly after another pro-Moore organization, the House Freedom Caucus, launched what AdImpact reported was a $759,000 buy targeting Carl.
TEXAS 26TH DISTRICT. Far-right media figure Brandon Gill has gotten a major boost from some high-powered outside groups as he seeks the GOP nomination in Texas' open 26th Congressional District, but he's also been the target of more than twice as much spending from organizations opposed to his candidacy.
Backing Gill are the far-right Club for Growth and a super PAC called Right Texas, which has been heavily funded by the candidate's father-in-law, MAGA toady Dinesh D'Souza. Together, the two groups have spent about $700,000, mostly on TV and radio ads and mailers, ahead of the March 5 primary.
At the same time, however, two other super PACs have combined for over $1.5 million on paid media and mail: America Leads Action, which has put in $1.1 million, and Conservatives for American Excellence, which is responsible for another $400,000. (We discuss these allied outfits more extensively in a related piece regarding the GOP primary in North Carolina's 8th District.)
One representative spot from America Leads attacks Gill as a "Wall Street banker" whose "bank did business with communist China." Thanks in part to self-funding, Gill remains the best-funded contender in this busy primary, and none of his rivals have been the focus of any outside spending, either positive or negative.
OHIO 9TH DISTRICT. J.R. Majewski told Politico on Tuesday that he was considering dropping out of the March 19 Republican primary for Ohio's 9th District, though reporter Ally Mutnick says that the disastrous 2022 GOP nominee has told people he's definitely going to quit.
Still, Mutnick notes that "even people who heard directly from Majewski about his plans to drop out acknowledge that he is a volatile character." His departure would leave state Rep. Derek Merrin, who has Speaker Mike Johnson's endorsement, and former state Rep. Craig Riedel as the major GOP candidates.
Majewski already aborted his bid for a rematch against Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur once before last May, a move he said he made because his mother was about to undergo surgery. But Majewski relaunched in October, an unwelcome development for House Republican leaders who don't want to give him the chance to avenge his 57-43 defeat.
Majewski gave his critics more to worry about this month when he used a slur to degrade athletes participating in the Special Olympics. The candidate uncharacteristically both expressed "regret" and told Mutnick this week, "If my comments put me in a position where I can't win the general election then I gotta do the smart thing, right?"
LOUISIANA 5TH DISTRICT. Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow's bid for reelection on Wednesday, a move that makes it even more difficult for fellow Republican Rep. Garret Graves to run against her in the 5th District. Graves, whose 6th District is now far too blue for him to win, had indicated that he doesn't plan to retire but has downplayed the possibility of challenging Letlow. Instead, he's repeatedly expressed optimism that the courts will reject the new congressional map that turned his constituency into a Democratic-leaning seat.
WISCONSIN 8TH DISTRICT. Former Gov. Scott Walker on Friday endorsed former state Sen. Roger Roth ahead of the August GOP primary. Roth remains the only major candidate competing to replace retiring Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, though state Sen. Andre Jacque tells WBAY that he hopes to decide over what the station characterizes as "the next few weeks."
OREGON 6TH DISTRICT. Former state Sen. Denyc Boles dropped her bid for Oregon's 6th Congressional District on Thursday, saying in a statement that "unexpected circumstances" had made it "difficult for me to campaign and potentially serve." Boles was the first notable Republican to challenge first-term Democratic Rep. Andrea Salinas when she launched her campaign last August, but she raised just $13,000 in the final quarter of 2023 and had only $52,000 in her coffers. Salinas, by contrast, took in $503,000 during that timeframe and banked $1.1 million.
In announcing her departure, Boles did not endorse the one other prominent Republican remaining in the race, consultant Mike Erickson, who lost to Salinas 50-48 in 2022. Erickson didn't kick off his quest for a rematch until January, so he hasn't filed any fundraising reports yet.
NEW YORK 18TH DISTRICT. House Speaker Mike Johnson just endorsed Alison Esposito, a former deputy inspector with the New York City Police Department, in her bid to unseat first-term Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan. Esposito, who was the GOP's nominee for lieutenant governor in 2022, is the only notable Republican running in the swingy 18th District in the Hudson Valley, but she's trailed the incumbent in fundraising by a considerable margin: Ryan raised $763,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023 and ended the year with $2.2 million banked, while Esposito brought in $240,000 and had $198,000 left over.
OREGON 5TH DISTRICT. Former Govs. Kate Brown and Barbara Roberts have endorsed state Rep. Janelle Bynum as she seeks the Democratic nomination to oust first-term Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Bynum previously earned the support of Oregon's current chief executive, Tina Kotek, meaning that, as the Oregonian's Sami Edge points out, all three women who've served as governor are now in Bynum's corner.
NEW YORK 26TH DISTRICT. Former Grand Island Town Supervisor Nate McMurray has abandoned his plans to compete in the April 30 special election as an independent and would instead concentrate on trying to make the June 25 Democratic primary ballot for a full term. Democratic state Sen. Tim Kennedy and the Republican nominee, West Seneca Supervisor Gary Dickson, will face off in April in the race to succeed former Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins for a Buffalo-area constituency that Joe Biden carried 61-37 in 2020.
NEW YORK 1ST DISTRICT. Former Democratic state Sen. Jim Gaughran announced Tuesday that he was suspending his campaign to take on GOP Rep. Nick LaLota, a development that came about half a day after the Democratic-run legislature unveiled a new map that moved much of his base to the 3rd District. Gaughran said that, while he was happy that many residents of Huntington would get to be represented by Democrat Tom Suozzi in the 3rd, there was no need for the legislature to split the town.
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