Biden won the Michigan primary decisively — but not by enough to calm Democratic angst
Biden won the Michigan primary decisively — but not by enough to calm Democratic angst
The president continues to put up major wins. But the protest campaign in Michigan foreshadows potential problems for him come November.
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Tens of thousands of Michiganders on Tuesday cast their ballots for “uncommitted,” putting them on track to garner more than 10 percent of the vote statewide. That figure seemed likely to exceed past levels of “uncommitted” votes in Michigan Democratic primaries, though fall short of sparking a political earthquake.
I would say that as a Biden supporter, I do have some jitters, but "angst" isn't the right word. The current fraction of "uncommitted" votes is 13.3%, which isn't much higher than Obama's 10.7% in 2012. The difference could be random noise, but if it does represent approximately 2.6% of voters voting in protest then it should be something that the Biden campaign takes into account to some extent.
The weird thing to me is how many people showed up to vote - a little over 760,000 as opposed to 195,000 in 2012. I'm not familiar with Michigan politics enough to explain this, but I assume it wasn't caused by the presidential part of the election and it might have altered the average demographics of the voters relative to 2012.
It's because we can vote by mail now. Biden was the only one on the ballot in my city, no down ballot positions at all. I voted since I just had to drop it in the mail, but I wouldn't make a trip out in February to vote for someone running pretty much unopposed.
760,000 as opposed to 195,000 in 2012
Probably because Michigan had a caucus in 2012, not a primary.
In 2016, Trump beat Hillary in Michigan by less than 11,000 votes
Yesterday, 101,436 Democrats voted uncommitted in a noncompetitive primary against an incumbent president after just 3 weeks of statewide organizing to advocate for an "uncommitted" vote selection
The Democrats should be extremely worried. They would need to win Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania to get 271 electoral votes without Michigan. Do we feel so confident in that result to entrust the future of American democracy to it?
Worried? Why? Did you not see Trump lost 35% of his own primary as a former president. There are WAY more warning signs for Trump in the general. 40% of Haley voter are never Trumper republicans. Pair that with him not being able to clear 65% as a former president and he’s toast.
I think it's a mistake to count all 100,000 uncommitted votes as results of that protest. (But it was clever for Tlaib to pick something that surprisingly many people would have done anyway - it was impossible for her to lose in the court of public opinion even if literally no one actually supported her.) The 1/5 or so of the uncommitted votes that were (by my estimate) protesting are important but they're not essential. Their votes have to be balanced against appealing to other voters elsewhere and against what Biden considers to be prudent policy.
If the extra 3 points of uncommitted don't vote Biden in the general, Trump wins Michigan. His victory margin last election was less than 200k votes.
Not necessarily, Trump has also lost a lot of voters since 2020.