President Biden faced his most serious opposition in Michigan, from individuals who criticized his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Republican infighting in the state did not affect Donald J. Trump, who cruised to victory.
President Biden won Michigan’s Democratic primary election on Tuesday, but he faced criticism for his backing for Israel while it waged war in Gaza, with a large number of people voting “uncommitted” as part of a protest campaign against him.
Former President Donald J. Trump also won the Republican primary, defeating South Carolina’s former Governor Nikki Haley to maintain his unbeaten primary record. The Associated Press called both races when the last polls closed at 9 p.m.
The results underscored how both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are dealing with long-standing party weakness, with significant percentages of Democrats and Republicans voting against them even as they prepare for a rematch in November.
In the Democratic primaries, Mr. Biden’s greatest major challenge came not from another contender but from Arab American voters, progressives, and young people who chose the “uncommitted” option on their ballots to protest his support for Israel.
Early statistics indicated that “uncommitted” had already gotten significantly more support than the approximately 11,000 votes by which Mr. Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Michigan’s 2016 general election—tthe protest campaign’s organizers’ first publicly stated target. Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump by around 150,000 votes in Michigan in 2020.
By early Wednesday, more than 95,000 voters had selected “uncommitted,” with about 85 percent of the vote counted—ddemonstrating how eager left-leaning Michiganders were to express their opposition to Mr. Biden.
In each of the previous three Michigan Democratic presidential primaries, around 20,000 Democrats voted “uncommitted.”.
Democrats will pay close attention to the results in Ann Arbor, a college town where “uncommitted” received nearly one-third of the votes. While no battleground state has a huge Arab American community like Michigan, many do have a considerable number of student voters, from whom Mr. Biden will require robust participation in November.
“I want to thank every Michigander who made their voice heard today,” Mr. Biden said in a statement that made no mention of the “uncommitted” vote or the planned demonstration against his Gaza policy. “Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great.”
Organizers of the “uncommitted” movement were eager to declare success, even if their overall percentage of the vote, 14 percent as of early Wednesday, did not constitute a significant symbolic win against Mr. Biden, who received 80 percent of the vote.
Layla Elabed, the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, the organization organizing the protest vote, told supporters at a primary night watch party that they had delivered a clear message to Mr. Biden: “Palestinian life is valuable, and we demand a permanent cease-fire now.”
The effort attempted to tell Mr. Biden that he must modify his attitude toward Gaza or suffer the consequences in November.
The threat was most acute in Michigan, which was critical to Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory and has recently shifted toward Mr. Trump in polls, but it may reverberate throughout the country.
Michigan, with its big Arab American population, college campuses, and early primary date, became the electoral focus of broader Democratic dissatisfaction with Mr. Biden’s backing for Israel’s war in Gaza, which local health officials believe has killed over 29,000 Palestinians. Some of his associates believed that if the movement expressed substantial disapproval of him, it might have long-term consequences in the general election, especially if Mr. Biden stuck to his position on the war.
“It’s not just the Arab American and Muslim community,” Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, a Democrat whose district includes Ann Arbor, told 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 remarked, is “not a surprise to me.”
The campaign received support from several notable Michigan Democrats, including Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, and Ms. Elabed’s sister. Our Revolution, a leftist group founded by supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (who later disavowed the initiative), spearheaded a phone-banking campaign. Michigan conducted rallies and visited mosques around the state.
Other left-wing grassroots organizations also pushed voters to vote “uncommitted.”
Now, Mr. Biden has found out how to persuade some of his closest supporters to return to the fold. Michigan is a key battlefield for both Mr. Biden and his expected adversary, Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump, for his part, advanced toward the Republican candidacy with his defeat of Ms. Haley. However, he is anticipated to get much more delegates on Saturday, when competing groups of Republicans will have dueling conventions following a months-long leadership battle that has thrown the state party into disarray.
This might indicate that the state will send two slates of delegates to the national convention this summer. Both parties are devoted to Mr. Trump, and the Republican National Committee has acknowledged one faction, led by Pete Hoekstra, as genuine.
Mr. Trump and his friends have pushed to focus on the general election. They have pushed Ms. Haley to quit, claiming that she is pushing him to spend money that could be better spent fighting Mr. Biden. She has stated that she will continue to compete in the March 5 Super Tuesday primaries, bolstered by campaign funds from rich contributors.
The “uncommitted” campaign was Mr. Biden’s strongest test yet in a primary season he has won as an incumbent, despite a long-shot opposition from Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips, who was expected to finish far behind the protest effort.
Even as Mr. Biden has increased pressure on Israel to end the war and expressed renewed hope for a cease-fire, surveys show that many Democrats oppose his handling of the situation, and pro-Gaza activists have attended his events around the country.
Samih Zreik, 80, voted for “uncommitted” in Dearborn on Tuesday at an elementary school where many signs were printed in both English and Arabic, while surrounding houses flew Lebanese, Yemeni, and Palestinian flags alongside American flags.
Mr. Zreik conveyed a message to President Biden: “Cease-fire, cease-fire, cease-fire.“
Without peace in Gaza, he stated that he would not vote for the president, even if it meant a victory for Mr. Trump, whom he despises.
“America can do a cease-fire in minutes,” Mr. Zreik stated.
However, many other voters in Dearborn believed Mr. Biden had lost their support for good.
Ali Sobh, a 22-year-old real estate agent who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, said he would most likely back a third-party candidate like Jill Stein of the Green Party in a general election, adding of Mr. Biden, “The blood is already on his hands.”
“The Republicans have shown us how bad they are,” Mr. Sobh remarked. “And the Democrats have shown us how bad they are.”
Mr. Biden did not campaign in Michigan during the three weeks leading up to the primary, and a few other prominent Democrats from outside the state came to advocate for him. Vice President Kamala Harris hosted an event in Grand Rapids last week that was closed to the public.
Mr. Biden’s backers appeared to understand that the protest movement may jeopardize his re-election effort. Days before the Michigan primary, a pro-Israel organization, Democratic Majority for Israel, began airing a digital advertisement warning that voting “uncommitted” would benefit Mr. Trump. It was the first paid campaign to improve Mr. Biden’s image in the state.
On Monday, Representative Ro Khanna of California, a major Biden surrogate who has become an unofficial mediator on Gaza between progressive activists and Biden friends, warned that the president would lose Michigan in November if he continued with his “status quo policy.”
The results on Tuesday are unlikely to reach Michigan’s previous “uncommitted” high. In 2008, when Barack Obama and John Edwards were not on the ballot against Hillary Clinton, their campaigns encouraged supporters to vote “uncommitted,” which got 40% of the primary vote—around 238,000 ballots.
