(Updated results, details throughout)
by Nandita Bose and Tim Reid
DEARBORN, Michigan, Feb 28 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden easily won the Democratic primary in Michigan on Tuesday, according to Edison Research, despite a protest movement from disgruntled party voters of the support given by the White House to the offensive led by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Donald Trump, for his part, once again established himself with a large lead over his ultimate rival Nikki Haley during the Republican primary, organized simultaneously, thus consolidating his status as favorite for the party’s nomination.
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If the victories of Joe Biden and Donald Trump were expected, observers were watching for potential signs of a weakening of the support they have.
Activists have called on Democratic voters in Michigan to choose “uncommitted” on the ballot to mark their opposition to Joe Biden’s support for Israel in the war in the Gaza Strip. “Uncommitted” is an option regularly offered to voters in the state to gauge support or not for a specific candidate.
According to Edison Research, after the counting of 58% of the votes, Donald Trump won the Republican primary with 67% of the votes ahead of Nikki Haley, with 27%.
With nearly 50% of the Democratic primary ballots counted, Joe Biden is credited with 80% of the votes, according to Edison Research. The number of “uncommitted” ballots was more than 58,000, or 13% – much more than the goal of 10,000 hoped for by the movement’s organizers.
It was not immediately possible to determine to what extent this number of “uncommitted” ballots is linked to the war in Gaza. Former Democratic President Barack Obama faced 21,000 “uncommitted” ballots in Michigan during the 2012 primaries before his re-election.
“Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively exceeded our expectations. Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom voted for Biden in 2020, are not committing to re-electing him because of the war in Gaza “, the Listen to Michigan movement, which urged people to vote “uncommitted,” said in a statement.
Bernie Porn, director of a Michigan pollster, said it remains to be seen how much the situation in the Middle East could weigh on Joe Biden’s re-election chances, while the situation could have evolved from here next November.
Joe Biden made no mention of “uncommitted” ballots in a statement released Tuesday evening to “thank” Michigan voters who took part in the vote.
A “TOGGLE” STATE FOR THE NOVEMBER VOTING
Many voters in Michigan’s Arab-American community who supported Joe Biden four years ago are now outraged, as are some progressive Democrats, by the US president’s support for Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed according to the latest report.
Michigan, where a large community of Arab origin lives, is considered a “swing” state, being neither a Democratic nor a Republican stronghold, with a decisive role in the presidential election on November 5. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a margin of only 2.8 percentage points.
“We have to win on November 5, and we’re going to do it by a wide margin, it’s going to be unheard of. It’s going to be fantastic. We win Michigan, we win everything,” Donald Trump told his supporters in Michigan by telephone.
However, doubt remains about the former president’s ability to convince the majority of moderate voters in the Republican Party, who favor Nikki Haley and whose support will be significant if he is actually nominated as candidate for the November election.
Joe Biden announced Monday evening that Israel had agreed to suspend military activities in the Gaza Strip for Ramadan, which is expected to begin March 9 or 10, as progress was reported in indirect negotiations with Hamas over a truce and the release of the hostages.
It should have happened sooner, said Michael Bristol, a 21-year-old student who said he voted “not committed.”
Nationally, according to a Harvard-Harris poll conducted this month, 61% of Democratic voters support Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and other party officials have warned that if they abandon Joe Biden, Michigan voters could deliver victory to Donald Trump in that state and allow him to return to power. (Reporting by Nandita Bose in Detroit, Tim Reid in Washington, with Katharine Jackson and Susan Heavey; French version Jean Terzian)
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