By Nicholas Nehamas and Reid J. Epstein

DEARBORN, Mich. — President Joe Biden won Michigan’s Democratic primary election Tuesday (27) but was facing opposition over his support for Israel as it wages war in the Gaza Strip, with a substantial percentage of voters casting ballots for ‘uncommitted’ as part of a protest movement against him.

Former President Donald Trump was also victorious in the Republican primary, coasting past former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina to continue his undefeated primary streak. The Associated Press called both races as final polls closed at 9:00 p.m. ET.

The results demonstrated how both Biden and Trump are confronting enduring weakness within their parties, with meaningful numbers of Democrats and Republicans voting against them even as they race toward a November rematch.

In the Democratic primary, Biden faced his most significant challenge not from another candidate but from Arab American voters, progressives and young people protesting his support for Israel by choosing the ‘uncommitted’ option on their ballots.

Early results showed that ‘uncommitted’ had already received more support than the roughly 11,000 votes by which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Michigan’s 2016 general election — the initial goal publicly set by the protest campaign’s organizers. Biden beat Trump by about 150,000 votes in Michigan in 2020.

By midnight, more than 64,000 voters had chosen ‘uncommitted’, with roughly half the vote tallied — a striking figure that showed just how motivated left-leaning Michiganders were to register their disapproval toward Biden.

About 20,000 Democrats voted ‘uncommitted’ in each of the past three Michigan Democratic presidential primaries.

Democrats will pay particular attention to the results in Ann Arbor, a college town where ‘uncommitted’ was receiving nearly one-third of the vote. While no battleground state has an Arab American community as large as Michigan’s, several have sizable numbers of student voters, from whom Biden will need strong turnout to win in November.

“I want to thank every Michigander who made their voice heard today,” Biden said in a statement that did not mention the ‘uncommitted’ vote or the organized protest of his Gaza policy. “Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great.”

Organizers of the ‘uncommitted’ effort were quick to claim victory. Layla Elabed — the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, the group behind the protest vote — told supporters at a primary night watch party that they had sent a clear message to Biden that “Palestinian life is valuable and we demand a permanent cease-fire now”.

The movement aimed to warn Biden that he must change his stance on Gaza or face repercussions in November. The threat was most urgent in Michigan, which was vital to Biden’s 2020 victory and has lately tilted toward Trump in polls, but risked reverberating across the country.

Michigan — thanks to its large Arab American population, college campuses and early primary date — became the electoral focal point of wider Democratic unease with Biden’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which health authorities say has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians. Some of his allies feared that if the movement registered serious disapproval against him, it could have lasting effects into the general election, especially if Biden held firm to his position on the conflict.

“It’s not just the Arab American and Muslim community,” Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., whose district includes Ann Arbor, said on CNN on Tuesday night. “It’s young people who want to be heard and have the same concerns.”

The strength of the ‘uncommitted’ campaign, she said, is “not a surprise to me”.

The campaign drew endorsements from some prominent Michigan Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, who is also Elabed’s sister. Our Revolution, the progressive group formed by supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — who disavowed the effort himself — led a phone-banking push. Listen to Michigan held rallies and visited mosques across the state. Other grassroots organizations on the left urged voters to choose ‘uncommitted’, as well.

Now Biden must figure out how to persuade some of his core constituents to come back to the fold. Michigan is a top battleground target both for Biden and his likely rival, Trump.

Trump, for his part, kept moving toward the Republican nomination with his defeat of Haley. But he is expected to pick up far more delegates Saturday (March 2), when rival factions of Republicans are set to hold duelling conventions after a months-long leadership fight that has thrown the state party into chaos.

That could mean the state will send two slates of delegates to the national convention this summer. Both sides are loyal to Trump, and the Republican National Committee has recognized one faction, led by Pete Hoekstra, as legitimate.

Trump and his allies have sought to turn squarely to the general election. Pushing Haley to drop out, they have argued that she is forcing him to spend money that would be better used against Biden. Bolstered by campaign cash from wealthy donors, she has said she will keep competing through the Super Tuesday primaries on March 5.

For Biden, the ‘uncommitted’ movement was his biggest test so far in a primary season he has dominated as an incumbent, despite a long-shot challenge from Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who was set to finish well behind the protest effort.

Even as Biden has stepped up pressure on Israel to wind down the war and expressed new hopes for a ceasefire, polls show that many Democrats disapprove of his handling of the conflict, and pro-Gaza protesters have shown up at his appearances around the country.

Samih Zreik, 80, cast a protest vote for ‘uncommitted’ in Dearborn on Tuesday, at an elementary school where many signs were written in both English and Arabic and nearby houses were flying Lebanese, Yemeni and Palestinian flags alongside American ones.

Zreik said he had a message for Biden: “Ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire.”

Without peace in Gaza, he said he would not vote for the president, even if that meant a victory for Trump, whom he abhors.

“America can do a ceasefire in minutes,” Zreik said.

But many other voters in Dearborn said Biden had lost their votes for good.

Ali Sobh, a 22-year-old real estate agent who voted for Biden in 2020, said he would probably support a third-party candidate such as Jill Stein of the Green Party in a general election, saying of Biden: “The blood is already on his hands.”

“The Republicans have shown us how bad they are,” Sobh said. “And the Democrats have shown us how bad they are.”

Biden did not campaign in Michigan in the three weeks leading up to the primary, and few other top Democrats from outside the state travelled to stump on his behalf. When Vice President Kamala Harris held an event in Grand Rapids last week, it was closed to the public.

Biden’s supporters seemed to realize the protest movement could damage his re-election bid. Days before the Michigan primary, a pro-Israel group, Democratic Majority for Israel, began airing a digital ad warning that a vote for ‘uncommitted’ would aid Trump. It was the first paid effort to lift Biden’s standing in the state.

On Monday (26), Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a top Biden surrogate who has become an unofficial mediator on Gaza between progressive activists and Biden allies, warned that the president would lose Michigan in November if he maintained his “status quo policy”.

The results on Tuesday are not likely to approach the recent high-water mark for ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan. In 2008, when Barack Obama and John Edwards were not on the ballot against Hillary Clinton, their campaigns encouraged supporters to vote ‘uncommitted’, which received 40% of the primary vote — about 238,000 votes in that contest.

-New York Times