‘Uncommitted’ votes steal the show in Michigan

Earlier this month, “none of these candidates” turned out to be a political spoiler for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley in the Nevada primary. Even though her main rival, former president Donald Trump, opted to participate in the state GOP’s caucus and Haley was essentially running unopposed in the primary, “none of these candidates” trounced her by thirty-three points. An unnamed third party showed up Tuesday night in Michigan, too, this time against the Democratic incumbent, President Joe Biden.

At the time of writing, “Uncommitted” is teetering on earning 15 percent of voters in the Michigan primary against Joe Biden. Progressive activists in the state, driven by young people and Arab Americans, organized the anti-Biden campaign as a form of protest against his administration’s position on the war in Gaza. If “Uncommitted” surpasses that 15 percent threshold, it will go into the Democratic National Convention with a delegate to its name.

“Uncommitted vote in Michigan — at 24K — already surpassing last three presidential election cycles on Dem side. And just 16 percent of vote in,” CNN reporter Manu Raju tweeted just before 10 p.m..

Barack Obama lost dozens of delegates in the 2012 Democratic primary, but mostly from states with a large contingent of “Dixiecrats” — conservative Democrats — who had largely started voting Republican by that point anyway. The Michigan “Uncommitted” vote against Obama in 2012 was 12 percent.

Either way, it seems a significant message to the Biden administration in a state that he needs to be competitive in come the general election. Biden beat Trump by about three points in their 2020 match-up, and the Arab American community accounted for 5 percent of the vote. Biden now has to decide if he will renege on his long career of supporting Israel and support a permanent ceasefire for the sake of re-earning these votes. The other option, of course, is to hope he can pick them up elsewhere — not an easy task with his dismally low approval rating and his two weakest issues, immigration and the economy, sitting at the top of voters’ minds.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump won handily, with the GOP race called as polls closed. His sole remaining opponent Nikki Haley did manage to pick up some delegates though — two by 10:15 p.m.

The conundrum that the Biden campaign is facing reveals a potentially fatal drawback of the left’s approach to coalition-building; that is, cobbling together as many minority interest groups as possible. There was bound to be a point where appeasing all of them was not feasible, and Biden now finds himself being forced to govern by heckler’s veto.

If he gives in to the pro-Palestinian contingent of the left, which has been only further elevated by Squad members in Congress, could his support among the Jewish population — traditionally heavily Democratic voters — dwindle?

Recent polling already suggests that black and Hispanic voters are pulling support from Biden as they feel he has taken them for granted. It was only a matter of time before other identity-based voting groups followed the trend.