Gaza primary protest in Michigan a warning for Joe Biden

Frontrunners cruise to victory in midwestern swin state but the President is made to pay for pro-Israeli stance.

People hug at the Listen to Michigan watch party in Dearborn, Michigan, on Tuesday night. Picture: AFP

US President Joe Biden has cruised to an easy victory in Michigan’s presidential primary – but was bracing for a substantial ­rebuke from an Arab-American protest over his handling of the war in Gaza.

There was little suspense over the outcome for both parties on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), with Mr Biden almost unopposed in the Democrat-nominating contest and Donald Trump declared the early victor in a two-way ­Republican vote that doesn’t even conclude until the weekend.

But after polling stations closed on Tuesday night, counties were initially reporting 16 per cent of Democrats in the key battleground voting for “uncommitted” rather than Mr Biden, part of a push to persuade the President to back off from his support of Israel.

That figure has been under 2 per cent in the last two election cycles and 11 per cent the last time a sitting Democrat president sought re-election – when Barack Obama won in 2012.

The mounting civilian death toll in the Israel-Hamas conflict has weakened Mr Biden’s standing among Muslims and Arab Americans, a bloc crucial to his narrow 2020 victory in Michigan over Mr Trump.

The midwestern state has the largest proportion of residents who identify as being of Middle Eastern or North African descent in the country, with most concentrated around Detroit.

Activists in the key battleground had asked Democrats to vote “uncommitted” to censure the President over US military funding for Israel, and to push a call for an immediate ceasefire.

“I was proud today to walk in and pull a Democratic ballot and vote ‘uncommitted’,” said Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in congress. “When 74 per cent of Democrats in Michigan support a ceasefire, yet President Biden is not hearing us, this is the way we can use our democracy to say, ‘Listen – listen to Michigan’.”

Nikki Haley, who was easily defeated by Donald Trump in Michigan, campaigns in Centennial, Colorado, ahead of Super Tuesday next week. Picture: AFP

It appeared the Listen to Michigan movement was set to comfortably surpass its goal of rallying 10,000 uncommitted voters to its cause. In the last three election ­cycles, some 20,000 voters have ticked “uncommitted” in the state’s Democrat primary, but that number was already at 19,000 soon after polls closed.

The protest never threatened Mr Biden’s easy march to the nomination, as his sole challenger, Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, had won just 2.7 per cent support when voting ended at 9pm. But the significant number of “uncommitted” votes could set off alarm bells ahead of the November general election, when Mr Biden cannot afford to see his vote eroded in the swing state.

The war started when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of about 1200 people in Israel, mostly civilians.

But concern has mounted amid the high civilian death toll in Israel’s retaliatory campaign, now at almost 30,000, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. A similar write-in campaign calling for a ceasefire during the New Hampshire primary went nowhere, but Michigan has a significantly larger Muslim and Arab population. The US Census ­Bureau estimates the statewide population claiming Middle Eastern or North African descent at 310,000, although the Arab American Institute says that figure is likely a significant undercount. The organisation estimates a ­nationwide Arab American population of 3.7 million and says more than 80 per cent are US citizens with the right to vote.

On the Republican side, CNN and NBC projected Mr Trump’s victory within seconds of polls closing. The former president has swept the early voting states and Michigan was never expected to interrupt his march to the ­nomination.

His sole remaining challenger, former UN envoy Nikki Haley, lost her home state of South Carolina to Mr Trump over the weekend but has refused to quit, saying she doesn’t believe the former president can defeat Mr Biden.

Although both parties held votes on Tuesday, Republicans have adopted a complex system that wraps up the contest on Saturday via caucus-style gatherings in each of the state’s 13 congressional districts. More than two-thirds of Michigan’s Republican delegates – appointed to back candidates at the party’s national convention – will be awarded at the weekend.

AFP