Quoted in "Michigan Primary: Biden Confronts Protest Votes as He and Trump Win Easily/President Biden faced his most significant challenge in Michigan from those opposed to his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Republican infighting in the state did not involve Donald J. Trump, who coasted to victory" (NYT).
But what percentage of the Democratic vote did "uncommitted" need to seriously wound President Biden? The NYT article downplays the percentage. I'm still looking for it! I am seeing discussion of the number of votes:
Early results showed that “uncommitted” had already received far more support than the roughly 11,000 votes by which Mr. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Michigan’s 2016 general election — the initial goal publicly set by the protest campaign’s organizers. Mr. Biden beat Mr. Trump by about 150,000 votes in Michigan in 2020.
By early Wednesday, more than 95,000 voters had chosen “uncommitted,” with nearly 85 percent of the vote tallied — a figure that showed just how motivated left-leaning Michiganders were to register their disapproval toward Mr. Biden.
About 20,000 Democrats voted “uncommitted” in each of the last three Michigan Democratic presidential primaries.
Democrats will pay particular attention to the results in Ann Arbor, a college town where “uncommitted” was receiving nearly a third of the vote. While no battleground state has an Arab American community as large as Michigan’s, several have sizable numbers of student voters, from whom Mr. Biden will need strong turnout to win in November....
Finally, I found the percentage. My suspicion was correct. It is not impressive enough to change anything (and they were trying to change Biden's position on Gaza):
Organizers of the “uncommitted” effort were quick to claim victory, even if their overall share of the vote, 14 percent as of early Wednesday, did not represent an overwhelming symbolic triumph against Mr. Biden, who had 80 percent of the vote....
And Biden wasn't even trying:
Mr. Biden did not campaign in Michigan in the three weeks leading up to the primary, and few other top Democrats from outside the state traveled to stump on his behalf. When Vice President Kamala Harris held an event in Grand Rapids last week, it was closed to the public....
By the way, Nikki Haley's percentage of the Republican vote was 26.5, almost twice the percentage "uncommitted" won on the Democratic side. And Nikki Haley is considered to have lost by a landslide.
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This morning, the Detroit News has "uncommitted" Dem primary votes at ~ 13%. To me, that's a long way from resounding.
Was there a green Starburst involved?
Easy to reach a goal that requires performing just slight better than half as good as the past 3 tries.
Voting uncommitted is a phoney vote. The truly uncommitted don’t vote at all.
Remind me of Kerry’s ‘I was for it, before I was against it’, whereas in this case, the uncommitted voters would be against Biden before they were for Biden.
People usually want to be paid to play a clown.
13% seems like a lot to me—not Nikki Haley in Nevada a lot, but it’s a lot. It’s almost exactly the difference between what Trump got in the Republican contest and what Biden got in the Democratic. Which means it could be enough to cost Biden the state. Which makes it resounding no matter what other metric one might prefer to use.
If only they cared as much for America as they do for that foreign land....
If Beiden loses 13 pct of his voters in the general election even if they don’t vote for Trump, or at all, Beiden will lose Michigan. So there is a threat. It’s possible that many of Haley’s votes were crossover Dems trying to cut Trumps total in the open primary.
It was a friendly. A scrimmage. Dun mean nutin. They’ll all fall in line when it matters…
Normalizing terrorism incentivizes more terrorism…
The political and media class have seriously failed to understand the generational change in opinion towards this issue. Trying to play this as an ‘Arab American’ or ‘Muslim American’ issue ignores the polling which shows young Americans turning against current policy towards Israel and Palestine in a significant way.
Meanwhile -- Netanyahu is maximizing his position. He continues to squeeze Biden for all he can. If Biden wins, Netanyahu gets status quo (ie, military support and political cover). If Trump wins, Netanyahu’s position gets stronger.
After all, on election eve Biden announced to all the kids watching Seth Meyers his “secret plan” to end the war.
Biden is exercising leadership. He could easily squeeze Israel for political gain. Instead he is standing by his friends and allies even though the leadership of Israel are his political enemies. He's risking his presidency for Israel.
Michigan population @10,000,000
Michigan Muslim population @250,000
@2.5%
John Henry
762000 democrats voted and 1.1 MM republicans voted in all categories. So that sounds bad for democrats. If all of Haley’s 300k votes were democrats crossing over or never trumps it would flip the results almost exactly the other way and Beiden would win by the same amount. There is no way to count crossovers or never trumps. The RCP poll average for Michigan shows Trump ahead by 5 pct now.
So we don’t know for sure what’s happening. If the 100,000 Muslims stay home in Nov that would cut Beiden’s votes accordingly. In 2020 many states were decided for 30,000 to 50,000 votes, but the primary is not providing any reliable data on the race for Michigan that we can use. We don’t even know if there will be more people voting in the general than in the primary, but probably so.
I completely agree with @rejahm at 5:57.
I lean towards the view of tim maguire and Josephbleau but even more strongly. Evaluating the number of uncommitted votes as a percentage of the number of Democrats who voted in an otherwise uncontested primary is meaningless spin, as is comparing it to the percentage that Haley got in a contested primary with potentially significant cross-party voting. The actual number of 'uncommitted' votes is almost *quintuple* the usual value, almost nine times more than Trump's 2016 margin, and approaching Biden's margin over Trump with a significant number of votes outstanding. Biden should have gotten 90%+, not barely cleared 80%.
You, Rich, and the rest of the keep-your-head-in-the-sand party ignore that base of the Democrat party is now virulently anti-Semitic and especially anti-Israeli. Biden's support for Israel's war on Hamas (not *Gaza*) has never been strong and got significantly weaker over this week with his claim that a ceasefire would be put in place this weekend and extend over Ramadam.
According to a New York Times/Siena survey conducted in December, for example, 49 percent of registered voters aged 18-29 said they would vote for Trump, while just 43 percent said Biden was their guy.
Regardless of the numbers (19% non-Biden; 143,000 or so), the percentage increase in the protest and current tone is dramatically different than 2020 with many "crawling over broken glass naked" to defeat Trump. Living with Joe has made the consequences of that deal known.
https://elections2024.thehill.com/primaries/michigan/
@Rich: "The political and media class have seriously failed to understand the generational change in opinion towards this issue. Trying to play this as an ‘Arab American’ or ‘Muslim American’ issue ignores the polling which shows young Americans turning against current policy towards Israel and Palestine in a significant way.
Indeed. Blame the media for fixating on Trump rather than straight news. "Out, out damned spot." With this split the left initiates another circular firing squad, as the left always must do. When will the Jews be forced to join the Christians to avoid the masked swastika crowd? If the Democrats lose Jewish support they lose everything.
If you can't at least understand how younger people might see the Israel issue as the same dynamic as the genocide of American Indians, you will never understand this issue. I don't follow it, so I won't comment beyond saying that I see in Twitter what these people are seeing, because I have an antiwar bent, and if it's true, about starvation of children, when food shipments have now been blocked by Israel for 50 days, for example, then opposing the strategy isn't "antisemitism."
The US is painting itself as the baddie here for most of the world, and the counter to it is truthful reporting that the things that people are seeing is not actually true, and if they are true, using our perceived overwhelming power to stop them, not accusing people who are upset by it of "antisemitism." Practically all of the support we get at the UN outside of our satellite countries comes from arm twisting. This is not just bad for Joe Biden, it's bad for America.
We are painting ourselves into a corner. We live in a nuclear age, where world conquest is out of the question. We have to find ways to get along. This is why I support the imperfect Donald Trump over the corrupted corpse with the painted on rictus that is Joe Biden.
It’s crap. They will vote Democrat in the end. They are Democrat cultists.
Generally, in primaries, 30% or fewer voters vote. This is an unusual example, but there's no reason to believe Islamists and leftists and college students won't gain more abstainers in November. The question lies in how many of them vote regularly anyway. If this is a relatively established voter cohort, and if a substantial number routinely go Dem in primaries (ie. when one side or another has a more competitive race) or are registered Democrats (which I think -- not sure -- you can also see), then Biden is in trouble. You can't see HOW someone voted in the past, but you can see IF they voted in previous elections, and the primaries are the most telling. I always found it odd that we can see these things. I think only candidates should be required to disclose which elections they did or did not vote in.
Biden's people are frantically combing through this information right now. So are Trump's.
So we don’t know for sure what’s happening
…and we won’t until the stables are mucked.
Michigan Muslim population @250,000
@2.5%
John Henry
2020 election in Michigan was won by 154k vote
30% of Ann Arbor voted non committed.
Add the seepage of Blacks, young adults, suburban moms, from the Dems, what does the EC count look like?
the thing about that 20% is that they were motivated enough to show up in an otherwise meaningless primary, where the DNC had already cleared the field for Biden, to specifically vote against Joe Biden in the only way they could.
Lost me at "pro-Palestinian and anti-war".
They are not an "antiwar" group. They just want Palestine to win the war. Talk about Orwellian language! "We're not at war, we're simply destroying Israel."
Thirteen percent is about four times what I would have predicted the uncommitted line would have garnered if I had made such a prediction yesterday afternoon. An incumbent president not getting 95%+ of a primary vote in a race no one is really contesting should deeply worry the Democrats.
Rehajm is right. Activists won't stay home in November.
The data is noisy. Some of the uncommitted voters may have been anti-Hamas and protesting Biden's efforts to undermine Israel. Others may have been protesting his handling of the economy.
Israel may be done mopping up Hamas before the US election, reducing its significance. Alternatively, the pro-Hamas protesters may escalate their disruption and violence to a point where even Biden has to speak against them.
Josephblau said,
"So we don’t know for sure what’s happening." Yeah we do. Biden and the Democrats are happening and the majority of Michiganders who actually work for a living are fed up with it. The shoreline democrats that moved from Cook County Illinois for the low property taxes are seeing the Democrats turn Michigan into Illinois. Under Trump the rules that stifled mining and logging in the UP were relaxed and for the first time in decades there were real jobs. Not casino jobs. You know who they are going to vote for.
Howard said...
Biden is exercising leadership. He could easily squeeze Israel for political gain. Instead he is standing by his friends and allies even though the leadership of Israel are his political enemies. He's risking his presidency for Israel.
2/28/24, 6:35 AM
Biden can't exercise his bowels.
Those running Biden could do a lot of things and have been but I don't know if they can change Israel's current path without also impacting the domestic political scene too much to their disliking. They will continue to posture and "look" like they are doing something (they are very good at saying they will do stuff) but the current actions in Israel are a large stone rolling down hill and has a LOT of momentum, stopping it will be VERY difficult. Israel understands they are in a fight for their very survival [yet again] and would like this to be the last time for at least a very long time.
It makes sense to me that Howard thinks Joey Ice cream is smart and calculating.
"This is a resounding victory for our country’s pro-Palestinian, antiwar movement."
Palestinians are anti-war? Since when?
Their US younglings supporters might be, but they can't reason their way out of a brown paper bag.
Biden is exercising leadership. He could easily squeeze Israel for political gain. Instead he is standing by his friends and allies even though the leadership of Israel are his political enemies. He's risking his presidency for Israel.
You can’t possibly be serious.
This is naked, cynical, political calculation. Biden can spare the votes of Muslims far more than he can spare the votes and campaign contributions of Jews. 40 to 50% of the Democratic Party’s funding comes from Jews or entities controlled by Jews.
starvation of children, when food shipments have now been blocked by Israel for 50 days
Why is Israel obligated to feed a people who have declared open war on them, and massacred more than 1000 of their citizens? Gaza shares a border with Egypt. All starving children there could be well fed tomorrow morning, with a tiny fraction of the money that we send to Egypt every year, if they would open their well fortified border with Gaza. Which they most certainly will not do, as they hate and fear the Palestinians, at least as much as the Israelis do.
Ann: And Biden wasn't even trying
Pretty much the motto of his presidency.
"antiwar movement."
Hence all the denunciations of 10/7 by the "pro-Palestinians." Next, they'll explain, being antiwar and all, how they'll cleanse Israel, from the river to the sea, without "war."
Ignore the spin. All we know about the Democrats who voted for “uncommitted” is that they are unhappy with Joe Biden. Some may be, as advertised, unhappy with his verbal support for Israel, but some number may be just unhappy with his feeble, foolish efforts to micromanage the way Netanyahu and the IDF are operating in Gaza. And included in the “uncommitted” vote will be people who don’t give a rat’s patootie about Israel or Gaza, however some mixture of Biden’s policies have hurt them or members of their family — they may be Democrats unhappy with Biden’s border policies, for instance. But at this point they are not unhappy enough — yet! — to cross over to vote for Trump. Yet.
By contrast, while we know that some number of the Haley voters are NeverTrumpers who will choose not to vote at all in a rematch between Trump and Biden, the only safe thing for Trump’s campaign is to assume that they are nearly all crossover Democrats who plan to vote for Biden in November.
Found on Instapundit:
"Almost no one bothered to look up what happened in Michigan the last time a Democratic president was running for re-election, Barack Obama in 2012. That year, Uncommitted received 10.7% of the vote, even though Obama was generally much more popular and inspirational to Democrats (and he also wasn’t pushing 80). So, likely only a small fraction of the 13.2% Uncommitted this year were specifically voting about Israel/Gaza. But the pro-Hamas folks ran a nice pr campaign and the media, wittingly or otherwise, went along with it."
Almost no one bothered to look up what happened in Michigan the last time a Democratic president was running for re-election, Barack Obama in 2012. That year, Uncommitted received 10.7% of the vote,
advocated voting for "uncommitted" in Michigan primary.
=================
uncommitted to civilization
committed to barbarity
I don't think one can really claim to be both "pro-Palestinian" and "anti-war." The Palestinians have attacked Israel repeatedly since Israel became a country.
I saw about 13%, which is pawltry.
Pro-murder, rape... rape-rape, torture... torture-torture, and abduction in a progression of the ethnic Spring series.
Michigan population @10,000,000
Michigan Muslim population @250,000
To be fair, Democrats voted for Planned Parent/hood, Planned Parenthood, and the Whitmer conspiracy. They wouldn't have to liberalize much more to garner the pro-murder, rape, torture, and abduction in Spring vote.
Of course Biden was trying, as much as any candidate whose only opponent is Maryanne Williamson would be trying in a primary. Ed Duggan is running his campaign in the state. Their offices and volunteers are ready. Duggan certainly knew in advance that the pro-Palestinians would be disrupting event.
Biden ran by not showing up. Limit the damage. He'll need a better excuse in the next state. Probably, secretly, the same one.
Chicago is going to be a riot in August. Many thousands of pro-Palestinian militants are going to burn the city down. Biden may as well stay home for that one too. Maybe Major could bite him in a timely fashion?
Free the hostages!
Stand with Israelis, stand with Palestinians, stand against Hamas et al, liberate the Israelis and Palestinians from this progressive regime of murder, rape, torture, and abduction in recurring Springs that have impoverished and imprisoned the people.
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