United States President Joe Biden has won the Democratic primary in Michigan and Donald Trump has won the Republican primary.
It was predictable, in a contest in which the first appeared without real opposition and the second had his advantage in the polls by dozens of points.
But just because the result is predictable, this does not mean that there cannot be surprises in the count.
The big unknown is what percentage of dissident votes will be in a key hinge state for the electoral aspirations of the two contenders in the presidential elections next November.
On the Republican side, the key will be how many ballots bear the name of Trump's only remaining rival, Nikki Haley.
On the Democratic side, how many voters in a state with a significant Arab population will have followed the recommendations of a protest campaign against the pro-Israel policy of the White House and chosen the “undeclared” option, equivalent to a blank vote, to demand a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
The polling stations closed at 8:00 p.m. (2:00 a.m. Spanish peninsular time on Wednesday) after being open for twelve hours.
In Dearborn, a city on the outskirts of Detroit where 55% of the population is of North African or Middle Eastern origin, and which has become the heart of the “
Listen to Michigan
” protest campaign
), what at the beginning of the morning was a mere trickle of people in the afternoon was gaining pace.
More than a million people had voted in advance, in a State of ten million inhabitants;
In Dearborn, election officials said turnout was higher than expected.
“We are running out of ballots,” they indicated in precinct number 2, when there was still an hour and a half left to end the vote.
“We want to show that we are an electoral bloc that must be counted on,” said the mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, outside the McDonald polling station.
Hammoud, of Lebanese origin, is one of dozens of Democratic officials and politicians who have expressed their support for the campaign for the “undeclared” vote to punish Biden.
Other groups in the more progressive Democratic wing also supported that option.
“It is our parents, our brothers, our families and friends who are being bombed….
"We want to use this opportunity we have to send a message: that unless the president corrects the course of his policy, he risks ruining not only his presidency, but ultimately even American democracy itself with the election of Donald Trump," continued.
“This community feels betrayed.
“We elected a president to lead with humanity, with decency, with empathy, and we have received the opposite.”
The American president, who at the beginning of the war in Gaza took a decisive side on the Israeli side, has gradually modulated his position, although he maintains his resistance to a permanent ceasefire and continues to send weapons to Israel.
In recent weeks he has declared that the Israeli government "has gone too far" in its war in the Strip, where nearly 30,000 Palestinians have died, has sanctioned Jewish settlers who attacked Palestinians in the West Bank and has warned against an offensive in Rafah. the last Gazan city to attack.
This Monday he expressed his hope of closing a temporary truce within a week that could serve as the first step towards a permanent ceasefire.
A gesture that Dearborn voters declared would not change their positions.
“Too little, too late,” said Khalid Turaani, of the Michigan Task Force of Palestine and one of the organizers of the “Abandon Biden” movement, which promotes the defeat of the American president in next November's elections.
Mayor Hammoud was also skeptical: “it is strange that while you are eating ice cream it is the time to talk about the ceasefire.
And meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented to his Cabinet a plan to invade Rafah during Ramadan, the Muslim holiest month.”
Michigan is key to the aspirations of both Democrats and Republicans.
Trump won this state in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes.
Biden took it from him in 2020 by 150,000 ballots.
The State has a population of 300,000 residents of Arab origin, which four years ago leaned overwhelmingly (64%) in favor of the current president.
“Four years ago I voted for Biden.
This time I'm going to vote for Trump,” Emad Said, an unemployed 48-year-old, said as he left his polling station in Dearborn.
His motivation, he claimed, was not solely the events in Gaza.
“Crime has increased, a lot of money is being sent to Ukraine and here we need… America first,” he pointed out, repeating the slogan that Trump has made famous.
A percentage greater than 10% of the total in “undeclared” votes would be an important warning for Biden in a State that, in addition to supporting him in 2020, has a Democratic majority in its local parliament and in the state governorship.
The president has received the support of the UAW, the influential automobile workers' union, with great political weight in a State that accounts for 20% of the entire country's vehicle production.
“We are going to continue highlighting the differences between Biden and Trump and, once they become clear, we believe that voters who have distanced themselves from Biden will return,” LaShawn English, regional director of the union, told Reuters.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, co-chair of Biden's campaign, has warned that a punishing vote now against the president could translate into a victory for Trump in November.
She has also indicated, in statements to the MSNBC television network, that “it is going to be important for the Administration to continue contact with leaders and individuals in the Palestinian, Muslim, Arab American, as well as Jewish communities.”
On the Republican side, how many votes Haley receives will represent an indication of the extent to which a part of this electorate harbors doubts about a second term for Trump, to whom polls gave a 57 percentage point advantage over his rival.
Although the data will be relative: only 30% of Michigan's delegates to the Republican convention in Milwaukee will be awarded now.
The remaining 70 will have to wait until Saturday, when the party will hold its state convention.
Or, rather, conventions: internal divisions have created two factions that have called different meetings in two different cities.
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