Michigan voters have an outsize impact on who will win the White House and which party will carry the House and Senate in 2024. In this series, Great Stakes: The fight to be hailed as victors in Michigan, the Washington Examiner will look at the thorny politics and unique matters that will swing the critical battleground state. Part two, below, examines the consequences for both Democrats and Republicans of moving up the presidential primary.
DEARBORN, Michigan — Michigan could embarrass President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump as Biden prepares for a protest vote in the Democratic primary over his response to the Israel–Hamas war, while the Republican contest is poised to underscore deep state GOP party division as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley continues her campaign.
But although the political focal point is the party’s respective primaries, Democrats and Republicans remain mindful of the Great Lakes State’s importance to the general election in November.
Michigan was critical in the 2016 and 2020 elections, with Biden’s 130,000 vote margin of victory over former President Donald Trump four years ago at risk of being eroded by the roughly 300,000 Arab Americans who live in the state, in addition to Michigan’s Muslim American community and younger Democrats, who disapprove of his approach to the war. But Democratic attempts to demonstrate Michigan’s importance to the party may have intended consequences, with a campaign encouraging Democrats to mark themselves as “uncommitted” to send Biden a message regarding the war.
“Democrats really worked hard to move this Michigan primary forward, to the point that they actually adjourned the legislature early in order to get immediate effect for the primary to go into effect on the theory that it would help make Michigan the likely permanent, or at least next time, early state in the process,” Michigan State University Institute of Public Policy and Social Research Director Matthew Grossmann told the Washington Examiner. “If it turns out that the biggest story out of the Democratic primary is dissension, I guess by voting for uncommitted, I think that may come back to bite them.”
Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday will decide the allocation of the state’s 117 delegates. At the same time, Michigan’s Republican delegates will be awarded through a primary on Tuesday and a convention on Saturday, determining 16 and 39 delegates apiece. The GOP’s more complicated nominating contest is a result of Democrats reordering their primary calendar to protect Biden, with the reforms at odds with the Republican National Committee‘s own order rules.
To further complicate matters for Republicans, the Michigan GOP’s leadership is in dispute after former Michigan Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra challenged 2022 Michigan GOP Secretary of State nominee Kristina Karamo to become party chairperson last month amid allegations of financial mismanagement. Trump endorsed Hoekstra’s challenge in January, and the RNC recognized his chairmanship a couple of weeks later, but Karamo has not. With lawsuits pending, the pair will hold competing conventions, Hoekstra’s in Grand Rapids and Karamo’s in Detroit.
“I’m not concerned,” Hoekstra text-messaged when asked about the practical confusion and political optics concerning the Republican nominating contest. “We will get organized. Public concerned about inflation, security, safety, not condition of GOP.”
Democrats, from the “Squad’s” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) to Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, have endorsed the Listen to Michigan uncommitted campaign as other activists like Samra’a Luqman advocate the community, more broadly, to “abandon” Biden this week and in November, regardless of whether there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Though the Listen to Michigan campaign has the comparatively modest aim of notching 10,000 uncommitted votes, that number was Trump’s margin of victory over Hillary Clinton in the state in 2016. It is also the most high-profile challenge to Biden’s leadership so far, particularly after special counsel Robert Hur‘s report undermined the president’s credibility.
“There’s really, really not a monolith, and I think that’s one of the most important things that people kind of forget or they lose sight of when they see some of the reporting on the uncommitted campaign,” Luqman, Abandon Biden campaign Michigan co-chair, told the Washington Examiner. “There’s a large portion of us that are not going to be voting Democratic this primary or even in the general.”
Although circumstances surrounding the war could change in eight months, with Biden suggesting there could be a ceasefire as early as next Monday, the importance of Michigan will not. Trump has an average 5 percentage point advantage on Biden in head-to-head Michigan polls, 47% to 42%, according to RealClearPolitics, but that does not account for independent candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Considering the other candidates, Trump’s nationwide edge over Biden increases from 2% to 3%.
“I know that we have got this primary and we will see differences of opinion,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), a Biden campaign co-chair, told CNN last weekend. “I just want to make the case, though, that it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term.”
Simultaneously, when Biden traveled to Michigan this month, he met with the United Auto Workers after the union endorsed his campaign. Weeks earlier, Michigan Arab and Muslim American community leaders had dismissed the idea of a meeting with his campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, preferring instead to sit down with White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Jon Finer in February.
“Was it a mistake for President Biden, when he went to Michigan, not to meet with any members from this particular community?” CBS asked Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), who warned Clinton about her poor prospects in the state in 2016, last weekend.
“He is going to need to do that at some point down the road. This community is pretty angry right now,” Dingell said. “Michigan’s a purple state.”
Meanwhile, Haley has announced she will not suspend her Republican primary campaign against Trump despite the former president winning the South Carolina contest last weekend by more than 20 points. During a stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday, the onetime South Carolina governor did not respond directly to a question related to what Super Tuesday state she could win next week.
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“If you have a candidate that can’t win 40% of the vote in the early states, if you have a candidate who can’t bring in independents … then that is a sinking ship, guaranteeing a President Kamala Harris,” Haley told reporters, adding that “something has shifted” within the Republican Party.
Polls open in Michigan at 7 a.m. Tuesday and close at 8 p.m.