Dueling primaries in the critical swing state of Michigan added some new data points and, in many ways, built on several preexisting narratives. Here’s a basic roundup.
1. Donald Trump underperformed the polling again!
Congrats to Trump on his 42-percentage-point victory over rival Nikki Haley, but the polls still love him more than the people do—a consistent phenomenon this cycle.
With 98% of the vote in, Trump holds a roughly 42-point edge over Haley, nothing close to his predicted margin. The final 538 polling average had Trump winning by 57 points, meaning he underperformed his polls by about 15 points.
Since the GOP primary has become a two-person race, Trump has consistently underperformed his polls. Across the four contests so far (excluding Nevada’s overcomplicated primary/caucus system), he has now underperformed his 538 polling average by 9 points. One way or the other, it can’t be bad for Biden.
2. “Uncommitted” passed their 10,000-vote goal, but President Joe Biden still finished strong
The “uncommitted” vote—an effort to challenge President Joe Biden’s pro-Israel stance on the war in Gaza—set a low bar of getting 10,000 votes in this Democratic primary and easily surpassed it, clearing the 100,000 mark.
Hillary Clinton famously lost Michigan to Trump by about 10,000 votes. So Tuesday night’s results revealed a meaningful level of concern about Biden’s support for Israel in a key swing state with a large number of Arab American voters.
That said, the overall percentage of “uncommitted” voters—a little over 13%—only modestly surpassed the 11% share of uncommitted voters in 2012, the last time a Democratic incumbent president faced a virtually uncontested primary. Later that year, President Barack Obama went on to win the state by nearly 450,000 votes.
The bottom line is that the uncommitted protest vote made a statement, but Biden still finished strong, with more than 80% of the vote in a primary where voters had three other options (uncommitted, author Marianne Williamson, and Rep. Dean Phillips).
3. Marianne Williamson (who wasn’t running) bests Rep. Dean Phillips (who was running)
Big night for Williamson, who had suspended her campaign and has now unsuspended it after blowing out Phillips by less than half a point, 3.0% to 2.7%.
Phillips is toast. And Williamson’s move to re-enter the race is a laughable over-read of her “victory” over Phillips, who, again, is toast. “Uncommitted” beat both by double digits.
4. The Trump protest vote was far more meaningful than the Biden protest vote
More than 30% of voters in the state’s Republican primary cast what is functionally a protest vote against Trump, who’s won every state so far. Haley garnered the majority of those votes and will likely finish with north of 26%.
At the same time, just under 20% of voters in the state’s Democratic primary didn’t vote for Biden.
In other words, Biden will win Michigan’s Democratic primary with more than 80% of the vote, despite a lot of suspense around the uncommitted vote, but Trump will win the Republican primary with under 70% of the vote, despite his diehard supporters surely wanting to make a statement against Haley and all non-MAGA Republicans.
5. Haley isn’t done bashing Trump
Despite her loss, Haley vowed to stay in the Republican primary until at least Super Tuesday. She is also on pace to hold at least 10 fundraisers in the 10 days before those contests ensue, according to Andrew Romano of Yahoo News.
Haley also used her spotlight Monday evening to make some astute observations about Trump and the Republican Party.
“What I am saying to my Republican Party family is, we are in a ship with a hole in it,” Haley said.
“The RNC is not about winning races up and down the ticket. The RNC is now about Donald Trump,” Haley argued, calling the organization Trump’s “legal slush fund.”
The Biden-Harris rapid-response account helpfully tweeted out the clip.
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