In an American presidential election which promises to be unpredictable and unenthusiastic, the two favorites continue their march towards the nomination, at the end of the Michigan primary, Tuesday February 27. But it is the respective handicaps of Donald Trump and Joe Biden that attract attention. If the former president has once again crushed the Republican vote against his rival Nikki Haley, around a third of activists oppose his announced coronation. As for Joe Biden, he was passing a feared test: that of the electoral aftershocks, on the left, of his unconditional support for Israel in the war in Gaza.
Joe Biden’s main opponent was not Dean Phillips, elected from Minnesota to the House of Representatives, but the participation and the blank vote, called “uncommitted” (“uncommitted”). More than 300,000 people identify as Arab-Muslim in Michigan. The use of blank voting has been promoted, in recent weeks, within it as a tool of protest against the American president, who refuses to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, simply for a “humanitarian break”. The Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave has already caused 30,000 deaths, mostly civilians, in response to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.
The American media focused on this Arab-Muslim minority, at the risk of neglecting the weight of other voters. As the count continued slowly into the evening, the blank vote was below 15%. It was particularly important in Washtenaw County, where several university establishments are concentrated, and in Wayne County, where the city of Dearborn is located, the heart of the Listen to Michigan movement. This is the name of the group from the local Arab-Muslim community, which has been mobilizing for several weeks.
The stated objective of this group was modest enough to be easily achieved: 10,000 votes falling to Joe Biden. This is the margin by which Donald Trump won in this state in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Joe Biden, for his part, recorded a lead of more than 150,000 votes. According to New York Timesat midnight, when half of the ballots were counted, there were more than 64,000 blank votes.
Beyond just the blank vote figures, Democratic experts observed with concern the local emergence, around the town of Dearborn, of a real change in behavior, mainly due to voters in their twenties. The threat of a crystallization of opposition to Joe Biden in a segment of this young electorate represents an important issue. From this point of view, Tuesday’s result represents a simple warning, without allowing definitive conclusions. Despite the president’s age and concerns about his ability to serve a second term, Democrats demonstrated their discipline.
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