‘People are so upset’: Michigan sends warning to Joe Biden over Gaza
Joe Biden has known for some time that he was facing trouble in Michigan stemming from a growing backlash against his support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
But on Tuesday night, he learned the scale of the problem, as 13.3 per cent of the state’s Democratic electorate, or more than 101,000 people — disproportionately in Arab-American communities and college towns — chose to vote “uncommitted” on their ballots instead of backing Biden.
The result marked the latest warning sign for Biden’s re-election campaign in a key battleground state — one whose 15 electoral college votes could be decisive in November. The protest in Michigan also comes as voters across the country continue to raise concerns about Biden’s age and rate him poorly on his handing of the economy and immigration.
It left Democrats in the state scrambling to find a way to heal the wounds, repair the damage and rebuild their coalition in time to face off against Donald Trump, the former president and likely Republican nominee in November.
“This is not something the Biden campaign can ignore, but this provides an opportunity to listen and to think through a strategy,” said Sarah Anthony, a Democratic state senator in Michigan.
But others in the party argued that by thrusting Biden’s stance on Israel into the White House race, the Michigan result would require a harder policy shift from the president.
“The way I see it, the greatest danger of [Tuesday] for the president, would not have been that there were so many uncommitted votes, but rather that so many people are mad at him in Michigan, endangering him in November, and he wouldn’t get the message,” said Andy Levin, a former Democratic congressman who had encouraged party members to vote uncommitted.
“To win Michigan, I think Joe Biden has to change course on Gaza. I don’t think there is a political solution to this problem in the sense of figuring out messaging or really amazing TV ads or sending fantastic surrogates . . . people are so upset about this . . . young people are so mad at the president about war,” Levin said.
Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, the city outside Detroit where more than half of voters are Arab-American, was brutal in a post on X. “If you wish to take that calculated risk of discounting the results, you risk unravelling the entirety of our American democracy,” he wrote on Wednesday.
Biden and his top officials have insisted that he is not setting Israel policy based on any domestic political calculations. But he has been more openly critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in recent weeks. He has also pressed for a weeks-long temporary ceasefire that could lead to the release of hostages held by Hamas, the militant group that instigated the war in October with its deadly attack on Israel.
“There is hope, especially if there is a ceasefire, that some of those uncommitted votes will come back into the fold in November,” said Susan Demas, editor-in-chief of the Michigan Advance, a local non-profit news site.
“It would be somewhat ironic if Trump would pull out a victory with some of those Arab-American voters given his policies with the Muslim ban, and vowing to go even further in a second term by deporting citizens. But politics makes for strange bedfellows sometimes,” she added.
According to the Realclearpolitics.com polling average, Trump is leading Biden in Michigan by 4.2 percentage points. At this stage of the race in late February 2020, Biden was ahead by 5.2 percentage points.
That reversal in fortunes is especially dispiriting for Democrats because they performed strongly in Michigan in the 2022 midterms, which secured the re-election of popular Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer amid a groundswell of opposition to Trump-friendly Republicans and support for Democrats’ efforts to protect abortion rights.
Despite the backlash over Gaza on Tuesday, many Democrats remain confident that they can make those arguments again in November. They also note that Trump’s own weaknesses were apparent in Michigan’s Republican primary, which was also held on Tuesday.
Trump defeated Nikki Haley, 68.2 per cent to 26.6 per cent, but didn’t do as well among the suburban, college-educated voters who could be decisive in the general election.
“Where Haley performed well is exactly what November is going to come down to,” said Mallory McMorrow, another Democratic state senator. “Donald Trump is not winning back suburban votes — and especially suburban women.”
But Matthew Grossmann, a political-science professor at Michigan State University, said that beyond the Gaza backlash, there were plenty of other alarm bells for Biden.
“We’re rerunning the same election with one big difference and that is Joe Biden is less popular,” he said.
Support for Biden in Michigan’s Arab-American community had been eroding even before the war in Gaza, Demas said. Although the community had been staunchly Democratic in recent elections, social issues from abortion to LGBTQ rights had pushed some of them away in recent years.
“There are plenty of Arab-American swing voters,” said Grossman.
Anthony, the Democrat state senator, noted that at more than 81 per cent of the party’s voters, Biden remained in a commanding position in Michigan, despite the protest vote. But she also had a word of caution about the swing state.
“Michigan is not a state you can take for granted . . . it requires attention.”