Yesterday, Joe Biden and Donald Trump won their party primaries in Michigan - but the results revealed problems for each of them. Here are some takeaways:
First, Michigan matters. It’s one of the five states - along with Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arizona - which will likely decide the election later this year. Michigan was the one of these states in which Biden did the best in 2020, and if he loses it in 2024, he’ll likely lose the election. So this was the first primary in a state which is going to be extremely important come November.
Out of the Midwestern swing states, Michigan is about as racially diverse as Pennsylvania, but much more diverse than Wisconsin. That means that, in theory, it ought to be much easier for Democrats to win. Yet Michigan is also home to a relatively large Arab-American population, particularly in the Detroit suburbs of Dearborn, Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights. Given the outrage and despair that many Arab-Americans feel about the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, national Democrats have been fearing a collapse in support in parts of the state.
A number of Arab-American activists and groups have been working to make Biden sweat, forming organizations like Listen to Michigan, which encouraged Michiganders to vote “Uncommitted” in the primary rather than for Biden. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, whose district contains Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, has endorsed the movement. For now its leaders are focused on sending a message which the hope will increase the chances of a ceasefire, but there’s a possibility that the movement will morph into a broader rejection of the president come November.
On the other hand, as Nate Cohn points out here, the number of people involved is very small - only about 3% of Michigan’s population identifies as Muslim, and 2% as Arab-American. If every single voter in Dearborn, Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights had voted for Trump in 2020, Biden would still have won the state.
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