CNN
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Tuesday's Michigan primary will not only assess President Joe Biden's strength in a key battleground state, but also serve as a litmus test of whether the president has rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Some 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's ongoing military operations, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, but Biden's enthusiastic support comes from many Jews and Arab Americans. It has infuriated large groups of American progressives, especially in and around Israel. The city of Dearborn, Michigan is home to the largest Arab American community in the United States.
That anger is fueling a statewide campaign among Democrats who criticize Israel to ask voters to mark their ballots as “faithless.” Biden won the state by about 150,000 votes in 2020, but the margin of victory narrowed further in 2016, when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by about 11,000 votes. . Groups leading the protests said they hoped to get at least that many “uncommitted” votes on Tuesday. The goal: send a message to the Biden campaign about the domestic political costs of his stance on the conflict, which critics are increasingly calling a genocide.
“This is not an anti-Biden campaign,” Leila Elabd, leader of the “Listen to Michigan” campaign, told CNN. “This is a humanitarian vote. This is a protest vote. This is a vote that tells Biden and his administration that we believe in saving lives.”
On the Republican side, Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will face off again in the first half of the state GOP's nomination process, which begins with Tuesday's vote and continues with 39 of the state's 55 delegates participating. I will do it.will be contested in the state tournament this weekend. This will be the first Republican primary in a state that Biden flipped in 2020.
Biden and Trump are expected to win easily in their respective races, but there will be lessons for both. The president's decision not to seek a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip alienated many young, progressive voters who helped the coalition win in 2020, but Biden said Monday that a long-sought ceasefire is now in sight. He said there is a possibility that it will come. The election results could provide an important real-world measure of the depth of his political difficulties.
For Trump, the margin of victory is a bigger issue than whether he will win in the first place, but if turnout for Haley is quite high, about 40% of Republican primary voters chose Haley over the former in South Carolina. The warning signs in the state are likely to intensify. president.
Here's what to look out for in Michigan.
How committed are Michigan Democrats to Biden? Tuesday will tell.
Israel has been bombing Gaza for nearly five months in retaliation for an Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people. Israel's ongoing military operation has killed around 30,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and has come under heavy criticism from some Western countries and the United Nations. There has been no condemnation from the US government.
Mr. Biden is a staunch supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government and has not publicly announced its tactics, even though White House officials have told reporters that the president is dissatisfied with him. There was little to criticize.
For activists calling for an immediate ceasefire, Mr. Biden's unwillingness to do the same, along with the horrifying images coming out of Gaza daily, are creating a political deadlock that now threatens his chances of re-election. There is. As Listen to Michigan supporters have pointed out, the state's decision could be decided by a close margin in November, potentially costing the president's Israel policy thousands of votes.
Democratic Mayor Abdullah Hamoud Dearborn wrote in the New York Times last week that he believes Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, ignoring the wishes of Americans for a stronger peace push. Biden and the U.S. government have been accused of
“Just a few months ago, I firmly believed that Joe Biden was one of the most influential and transformative presidents our country had seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” Hammoud wrote. Ta. “But no amount of groundbreaking legislation can outweigh the more than 100,000 dead, injured and missing in Gaza. The scales of justice will not allow it.”
Movement leaders are careful to stress that they are not endorsing Mr. Trump, but against Mr. Biden (whose presidential success was largely based on his unique ability to unite the Democratic Party). He is using his influence to highlight the domestic downsides of his current approach.
But there is one slow wildcard. Biden said on Monday that he hoped Israel and Hamas would agree to a ceasefire by “next Monday.”
“My national security adviser says we're getting closer,” Biden said during an appearance at an ice cream parlor with comedian Seth Meyers and others. “It's getting close, but it's not over yet. And my hope is that by next Monday there will be a ceasefire.”
CNN reports that Hamas has withdrawn some key demands in hostage deal negotiations, suspended fighting in the Gaza Strip and negotiated The parties are said to be close to reaching an initial agreement that will allow them to stop fighting and assess the situation. A group of Israeli hostages were released, two sources familiar with the discussions said.
After losing South Carolina by about 20 points on Saturday, Haley won 40% of the vote needed to flip the Republican presidential primary (roughly the same as what she got in her home state) and 50% needed. I admitted that it wasn't much more than that.
But, as she also pointed out, 4 in 10 is not a “small group” but “a huge number of voters in the Republican primary who say they want an alternative to Trump.”
The question remains whether this is a “huge'' number or simply a minority with deep pockets but who have been effectively defeated. So far it seems like the latter. But Haley's hopeful performance in Michigan, a state central to the former president's return to the White House, shifts the narrative slightly back in her direction ahead of Super Tuesday on March 5. there is a possibility.
In these races, Trump will win more than a third of the delegates in the Republican primary, which he has dominated and dominated early voting states. No matter how hard she tries, Haley is unlikely to win a majority in Michigan, where most of her wins will come in this weekend's caucus-style state convention.
Divided and confusing GOP process
The divergent delegate-gaining process for Tuesday's Michigan Republican primary and Saturday's state convention is due to Democrats' decision to change the party's presidential nominating calendar after the 2020 election, including the relegation of Iowa and New Hampshire. ) as a result of the Republican response to the They moved South Carolina and Nevada to the front and placed Michigan at No. 3 in the new lineup.
Republicans opposed holding Michigan's primary early, violating Republican National Committee rules that limit which states can hold campaigns by March 1. The hybrid model emerged after Democrats, who control Congress and the governor's office, moved Michigan's primary to Feb. 27 despite opposition from Republicans.
Further complicating matters, the Michigan Republican Party is in the midst of a battle over who will actually lead the party, with two people claiming to be party chairs holding dueling conventions on Saturday.
The RNC and President Trump have confirmed former ambassador and congressman Pete Hoekstra as chair. But election conspiracy theorist Cristina Karamo, whom the state party voted to remove from office in January, has refused to relinquish control of her government, claiming she was illegally removed from office.
Hoekstra has a tournament scheduled for Saturday in Grand Rapids. But Karamo also holds tournaments in Detroit. The RNC's decision to confirm Hoekstra suggested the party would accept delegates from the convention he oversees.
It is one of the most important presidential battleground states in the United States, and drama is unfolding between the Democratic and Republican parties.
Biden is counting on support from the United Auto Workers union, support from Black voters and a stronger Democratic base. The fight over abortion rights has energized voters, helping Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her party win up and down the 2022 ballot.
But this “non-commitment” campaign could serve as a gauge of whether his support for Israel's war with Hamas poses serious problems. Approximately 146,000 Muslim Americans voted in Michigan's general election in 2020, according to an analysis by EmGage, a group that works to expand the political power of Muslim Americans.
President Trump, meanwhile, wants to rebuild the white working-class coalition that helped break down the “blue wall” in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016.
But amid a Democratic resurgence, Michigan's Republican Party has been led by Trump allies who have pushed false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. The former president and his allies have continued to undermine mail-in voting. This is a potentially big problem in the state, which approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote by mail to all registered voters in 2022.
