This has been a bonkers political week, perhaps one of the most impactful in our nation's history, led by the absolutely brazen attempt by Trump's benefactors in the Supreme Court to help him win the presidency. This eclipsed what was at one time the big political story of the week, the Michigan primary.
The right-wing Supreme Court Justices' clear corruption and obvious attempt to put their thumb on the scale for Trump sends a loud message to decent, non-delusional Americans: it's up to us to stop fascism. So, did the Michigan primary give us any signs as to how the general election might play out?
Well, the Michigan primary was another opportunity for the media to run with its favorite narrative, Bad for Biden. Bad for Biden in this case took the form of the number of Uncommitted votes.
Uncommitted picked up 13.2% of the vote, receiving just over 101,000 votes. This is a protest vote over Gaza. On one hand, this is comparable to the 10.7% who voted uncommitted in Michigan during the 2012 caucus. I would caution against reading too much into that; first off, 2012 was a caucus. Second, the emotions now are much more intense than in 2012.
Americans have had relatives killed by the IDF during their vicious and over-the-top attacks on Gaza. I have empathy for them, and you should too. Israel has a right-wing government - Bibi = Putin = Trump. Israeli far-right politicians are as horrible as far-right politicians everywhere, including monsters like National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Incidents like yesterday's killing of over 100 starving people trying to get scarce aid amplify the fact that Israel in its current form is a far-right menace. International aid agencies are sounding alarms that a serious famine is imminent in Gaza. What many of the Uncommitted voters were doing was simply exercising democracy and using votes to get their voices heard. There are extreme groups within that coalition who will not vote for Biden, but there are also a lot of people who just want to be heard.
What all this means for Biden politically is not as simple as a lot of people seem to think. He can't dismiss worries about his Gaza policy. The stakes are way too high, we can't assume anything. Biden has been somewhat disappointing in how he has dealt with the Gaza concerns in Michigan up to this point, but the events of this week I believe will prod Biden into doing better outreach to the Arab-American community in Michigan. He is not Trump, who reacts to perceived weaknesses by insulting the people he needs to convince (more on the red flags for Trump in Michigan below). And really, name a winning campaign recently that didn't have to overcome challenges.
All that said, what Bad for Biden punditry ignores is Biden got a strong turnout for a basically meaningless primary. Biden broke 80%, and Uncommitted did not reach the magical 15% mark needed to land a convention delegate. Also, much was made about how it "blew past the organizers' goal of 10,000 votes" but that was savvy framing by organizers - if they got only 10,000 votes, their effort would be a complete flop. So, long story short, both pundits and Democrats need to calm down a little.
On the GOP side, Trump had the fourth primary in a row where he underperformed. In fact, I agree with election expert Simon Rosenberg who notes that what Biden experienced in Michigan signals a challenge, but what Trump experienced signals a threat.
The only two Michigan polls for the GOP primary had Trump up by 60 points and 51 points over his opponent Nikki Haley. Trump won by 41.6 points, so once again, Trump underperformed his polls. He had similar results in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire.
One question I had going into 2024 was whether the trend since 2018 would continue. By this I mean pre-election poll panic and breathless punditry about Democrats being in big trouble being totally erased by strong election showings by Dems. Let's not get too far over our skis here - primaries and general elections are two different critters. But there are signs once again that the polls, or perhaps the REPORTING on polls, are exaggerating Republican odds of winning. We certainly saw that again in Michigan.
How many of the Haley voters will either stay home, hold their noses and vote for Trump, or support Biden is unclear. Axios goes deeper into Trump's demographic problem here: his coalition is awfully white, male, and old.
To sum it up, Michigan told Biden where he needed to do some work, and told Trump he had some cracks in his coalition too. It's easy to imagine Biden doing the work to shore up his voting block and Trump doing little to attract disgruntled Republicans. That, to me anyway, is the story of the Michigan primary.
The last word goes to Michigan native Smokey Robinson.
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