Keys to the Michigan primary elections: 100,000 protest votes and weak points of the candidates

The main candidates in the United States presidential primaries, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump, have comfortably won in Michigan, one of the pivotal states that can tip the balance in next November's elections.

But their respective triumphs have also entailed a cost, and reveal the problems they suffer among part of their electorate.

These are some of the keys that the results show.

The main key: the “undeclared” vote to protest against Biden

The American president has received more than 80% of the 760,000 votes cast in Michigan, a State of 10 million inhabitants.

But he has also received more than 101,000 “undeclared” ballots (13.2%), equivalent to a blank vote, in a gesture of protest against his pro-Israeli policy in the war in Gaza.

A campaign launched by the large Arab community in Michigan and by progressive groups had urged Democratic supporters to choose that option to demand a permanent ceasefire and warn Biden that his rejection of a ceasefire could cost him his re-election. .

The campaign had set a modest goal: to achieve 10,000 “undeclared.”

An easy amount: in the last three primaries in the State, without an organization behind it, 20,000 blank votes had been registered as a protest for different causes.

This Tuesday's results have exceeded calculations.

It is a sign of simmering discontent among the party's rank and file, which could jeopardize the delicate coalition of progressive groups, minorities, unions and college graduates that brought Biden to the White House in 2020. Dozens of Democratic, Michigan and US politicians outside the State, had expressed their support for the initiative.

“The message that these votes send is something that we already knew before the primaries: that the president is losing support for his support for a massacre in Gaza and has to change his position before coming to ask for our votes in November,” says Abbas. Alawieh, spokesperson for the group Listen to Michigan, organizer of the campaign.

Listen to Michigan has received inquiries from other organizations in states such as Washington, which will hold its primaries on March 12, or Minnesota, which will host its primaries next week, who want to launch similar campaigns.

“We are willing to coordinate strategies with all those who wish to create an anti-war coalition,” explains Alawieh, a former adviser to the US Congress.

The president has not made any reference to the protest vote, nor to the situation in Gaza, in his statement about the Michigan results, where he chose to focus on his differences with Trump in areas such as abortion rights or the economy.

Vice President Kamala Harris has indicated for her part, in another statement, that the results of these primaries “make it clear that the people of Michigan are ready” to address issues such as gun violence or reproductive rights.

Participants in the campaign insist that the numbers achieved in the election demonstrate the need for the White House—and Democratic legislators—to change their position and pay attention to their bases.

“If the White House is listening to us, if our leaders in Congress and in the State are listening to us, we need a change of course, or we risk American democracy being ruined in November with a victory for Donald Trump,” he noted. Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, a city with a majority Arab population near Detroit and where the “undeclared” vote campaign was born.

Trump also exhibits weaknesses

For the former president and Republican candidate to return to the White House, this Tuesday's election event offered the opportunity to make clear the support he has in a State where the party apparatus is very loyal to him.

Michigan was key to his victory in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, but withdrew its support in 2020, when Biden won this state by 150,000 votes.

Instead, Michigan made clear that a sizable portion of Republican voters, especially those with college educations, disagree with the party's likely November nominee.

Nikky Haley, former US ambassador to the UN, scored 26% of the votes, three days after having touched 40% in her state, South Carolina: an insufficient amount to advance in the race for the White House, but significant .

Some of Haley's supporters say that come November, they will not vote for the real estate magnate.

Nikki Haley begins to glimpse her retirement

The former US ambassador to the UN arrived in Michigan with the hope of capitalizing on the moderate Republican vote to take flight after her clear defeat in the primaries in South Carolina.

She didn't get it.

The only rival still in contention against the great favorite, Donald Trump, achieved little more than a quarter of the votes.

And it doesn't look like she's going to raise her percentages in the next few races, in conservative Idaho this weekend or on Super Tuesday on March 5.

Haley has promised to continue the battle, at least, until next Tuesday, in which States of the weight of California, Texas or Virginia will be decided.

“We have a country to save,” he declared to the CNN television network after the polls closed in Michigan.

But, without having yet achieved any victory, as donors begin to withdraw their support, and with the polls overwhelmingly against him, he has also begun to change his speech, to stop insisting that he can win the race and concentrate more on insisting on that Trump cannot win a general election merely with the support of his base.

In the same CNN interview, he acknowledged that “it is possible” that the majority opinions of the Republican Party no longer coincide with his.

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