The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has comfortably won the Democratic primaries in Michigan and Donald Trump, the Republican ones, in which he has won with 68% of the votes over his rival Nikki Haley, who remains in 26th place. %. But the tenant of the White House has received a strong vote of punishment for his pro-Israel policy in the war in Gaza. In 13.3% of the ballots, more than 101,000, the “not declared” box has been marked, equivalent to a blank vote. A campaign launched by the large Arab community in that State and by progressive groups had urged Democratic supporters to choose that option to demand a permanent ceasefire and warn Biden that his rejection of an armistice could cost him re-election.
The percentage of “undeclared” votes has greatly exceeded the objectives that the campaign had set. Listen to Michigan (“Listen to Michigan”) and highlights the Democrat’s weaknesses in achieving the support of the fragile center-left coalition – young people, minorities, unions, progressive groups – that brought him to power four years ago. Added to his positions on Gaza are concerns about his age, 81, or the economy. The president’s popularity throughout the country is around a minimum of 38%.
Michigan is key to the aspirations of both candidates. Trump won here in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes. Biden took the place from him in 2020 by 150,000 ballots. The State has a population of 300,000 residents of Arab origin, which four years ago leaned overwhelmingly (64%) in favor of the current president.
Listen to Michigan The goal of 10,000 blank votes had been set, the number of ballots that the Republican magnate obtained ahead of Hillary Clinton in 2016. In the last three Democratic primaries in the State, some 20,000 “undeclared” votes were registered.
“We have put human lives before the game. We have put human lives before the president,” congratulated the mayor of the town of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, one of the Democratic politicians who have supported the blank vote campaign, during the counting of the results. Dearborn, a city on the outskirts of Detroit where 55% of the population is of North African or Middle Eastern origin, has been the birthplace of the campaign, which seeks to demonstrate to Biden that to win Michigan, key to his electoral path To continue in the White House, he needs the votes that demand a ceasefire. In Wayne County, where Dearborn is located, the “unreported” vote reached 75%.
In a statement on the results of the primaries, Biden has not mentioned the campaign Listen to Michigan nor the blank votes. Neither did his electoral team, in another statement. The president has chosen to focus on criticism of the policies of his foreseeable Republican opponent, Donald Trump, to conclude: “This fight for our freedoms, for working families, and for democracy is going to need us all to unite. I know we will.”
The polling stations closed at 8:00 p.m. local time (2:00 a.m. on Wednesday in mainland Spain) after being open for 12 hours. In Dearborn, what at the beginning of the morning was a mere trickle of people in the afternoon was gaining pace. More than a million people had voted in advance, in a State of ten million inhabitants; In Dearborn, election officials said turnout was higher than expected. “We are running out of forms to register voters,” they indicated in district number 2, when there was still an hour and a half left before voting ended.
“We want to show that we are an electoral bloc that must be counted on,” Mayor Hammoud had pointed out at one of the polling stations during the day. “It is our parents, our brothers, our families and friends who are being bombed [en Gaza]. “We want to use this opportunity we have to send a message: that unless the president corrects the course of his policy, he risks ruining not only his presidency, but ultimately even American democracy itself with the election of Donald Trump,” continued. “This community feels betrayed. “We elected a president to lead with humanity, with decency, with empathy, and we have received the opposite.”
The American president, who at the beginning of the war against Gaza took a decisive side on the Israeli side, has gradually modulated his position, although he maintains his resistance to a permanent ceasefire and continues to send weapons to Israel. In recent weeks, he has declared that the Israeli government “has gone too far” in its war in the Strip, where nearly 30,000 Palestinians have already died, has sanctioned Jewish settlers who attacked Palestinians in the West Bank and has warned against an offensive in Rafah, the last Gazan city to attack. This Monday he expressed his hope of closing a temporary truce within a week that could serve as the first step towards a permanent ceasefire.
A gesture that Dearborn voters declared would not change their positions. “Too little, too late,” said Khalid Turaani, of the Michigan Task Force of Palestine and one of the organizers of the movement. Abandon Biden, which promotes the defeat of the American president in next November’s elections. Mayor Hammoud was also skeptical: “It is strange that while you are eating ice cream it is the time to talk about the ceasefire. And meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented to his Cabinet a plan to invade Rafah during Ramadan, the Muslim holiest month.”
“Four years ago I voted for Biden. This time I’m going to vote for Trump,” Emad Said, an unemployed 48-year-old, said as he left his polling station. His motivation, he claimed, was not solely the events in Gaza. “Crime has increased, a lot of money is being sent to Ukraine and here we need… America first,” he pointed out, repeating the slogan that Trump has made famous.
“We are going to continue to highlight the differences between Biden and Trump and, once they become clear, we believe that voters who have distanced themselves from the president will return,” LaShawn English, regional director of the UAW automobile union, told Reuters.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, co-chair of Biden’s campaign, has warned that a punishing vote now against the president could translate into a victory for Trump in November. She has also noted, in statements to the MSNBC television network, that “it is going to be important for the Administration to continue contact with leaders and individuals in the Palestinian, Muslim, Arab American, as well as Jewish communities.”
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