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Biden and Trump handily win Michigan primary with warning signs

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President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both won their parties’ Michigan primary, but neither had nights that were totally triumphant. The question now becomes: who has the bigger warning sign and how will he deal with it?

Politico:

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump scored decisive wins in their respective Michigan primaries on Tuesday, with questions hovering over both.

Trump continues to face a faction of Republicans who refuse to back his candidacy despite his chokehold on the nomination. Biden was confronted with a protest movement urging Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the primary over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Early returns showed that “uncommitted” was poised to easily garner more than 10 percent of the vote statewide.

The fissures in both parties have sparked concerns over how each candidate will fare in this critical swing state.

For Biden, the main political threat has come from progressives and like-minded voters. A coalition of Arab-American leaders in Michigan organized a push for the “uncommitted” vote through the “Listen to Michigan” campaign. The effort involved organized protests and phone-banks, reaching tens of thousands of voters, with an aim to pressure the president into supporting an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

The Washington Post offered four takeaways from the vote. Here are the key points. Go to the Post article to read them in full:


1. What the ‘uncommitted’ vote means
The idea behind the “uncommitted” campaign was to get lots of people in a state with a disproportionate number of Arab Americans to make a point — and perhaps send a message to Biden about his Middle East policy favoring Israel too much. It was led by some prominent Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a Palestinian American congresswoman.

There is no question it got people’s attention on Tuesday. Whether it really changed the 2024 paradigm is another matter.
….2. Nikki Haley fades, but not completely

…3. Haley begins to acknowledge the endgame

4. Biden’s actual primary challenger peters out
That Biden’s actual primary challenger, Phillips (D-Minn.), lost to “uncommitted” wasn’t terribly surprising. The “uncommitted” campaign had significantly more momentum behind it.

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