Strong showing by Gaza protest vote in swing state Michigan sends message to Biden – live

Good morning, US politics blog readers. On the surface, things went about as expected in Michigan’s primary last night. Donald Trump was the overwhelming pick of the state’s Republicans, who gave him more than 68% support compared to his sole challenger Nikki Haley’s nearly 27%. Among Democrats, Joe Biden won 81% of the vote – no surprise for a sitting president. But more than 13% of the party’s voters opted not to vote for Biden and rather write in “uncommitted” as part of a campaign to protest his administration’s support for Israel and refusal to press for a ceasefire in its invasion of Gaza. In Dearborn, home to large communities of Arabs and Muslims, the write-ins beat the president by more than 50 percentage points.

The general election is eight months away, but the protest was nonetheless another worrying sign for Biden, whose re-election campaign has been rattled by polls showing him down against Trump in several swing states, including Michigan. The president now seems tasked with not just winning over a state that was crucial both to his victory in 2020 and Trump’s in 2016, but winning back a community whose support could prove pivotal to deciding the election.

Here’s what else is going on today:

• Hunter Biden will finally give behind-closed-doors testimony before the House committees trying to impeach his father, after much drama.

• A government shutdown still looms, despite a meeting at the White House yesterday between Biden and the leaders of Congress, where all sides pledged to ensure it does not happen. They have until Friday to make good on that.

• Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, duels with reporters at 2.30pm ET.