UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 28, 2024 · 7:12:44 PM +00:00 · Madisonian
Final update for this draft —
If we look at the total number of votes that Biden got in 2020, and then multiply it by the percent of protest votes cast in this primary (13%), Biden may be short as many as 365,000 votes come November. That’s more than twice the margin he won by in 2020 in terms of total votes.
365,000 votes is a lot of people he needs to get right with. If the polls about Michigan are even remotely correct, Biden is in massive trouble.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 28, 2024 · 1:29:29 PM +00:00 · Madisonian
Woke up this morning to the margins not changing, but a pretty brutal threshold for Biden’s team to grapple with (and a media narrative that will haunt and hound him going forward, at least for a while).
Over 140,000 Democrats said “No” to Joe yesterday, 100,000 of them who aligned themselves with the Unconfirmed movement. Joe Biden must work to secure these voters.
But if they don’t vote in November, they’ll elect Trump! Yes, they will. So what is Joe Biden and the so-called “center” of the Democratic party going to do to secure those votes or bring them back into the coalition?
140,000 votes against Joe Biden is terribly close to the margin by which he won the state in 2020. He’s not going to make up those votes by appealing to disaffected Republican moms in the suburbs. Biden needs to get his base back or he’s screwed, and so are all of us. Don’t blame the voters. Blame Biden and the party for abandoning those voters and abandoning a basic moral obligation to the humanity of the Palestinian people.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 28, 2024 · 4:31:26 AM +00:00 · Madisonian
At present, the total on voters pulling the lever for Uncommitted is nearly 5 times the margin Donald Trump won with in 2016. When you calculate the votes for his opponents, it comes up to nearly half the margin Biden won the state by in 2020.
The number will only go up as the night goes on. By contrast, Trump has earned a margin of victory in terms of total votes that is nearly even to the total number of votes Biden has gained in the state at the posting of this update.
As reported by CNN, Joe Biden has won the Michigan Primary, but unlike other recent victories, his margin is no where near as robust. Staging a protest vote against the President’s failed policies and lack of action to stop Israel’s war of genocide against the Palestinians, more than 35,000 Democrats have voted “undecided” in the Michigan Primary, sending a clear message to the Biden campaign and the administration.
Biden needs Michigan, and he very much may need these votes. It’s up to him to decide how he is going to win over these voters come November, but as it stands, Michigan is a gaping wound in his re-election strategy.
Biden’s initial reaction to Netanyahu's genocidal attack on Gaza was to dismiss early reports of the death toll suffered by innocents in Gaza. In October, he seemed not concerned at all for the lives of Gazans, saying “What I have indicated to him is that if that's possible - to get these folks out safely - that's what he should do. It's their decision. But I did not demand it. I pointed out to him, if it's real, it should be done.” This is at a point where nearly 6,000 Palestinians had already been slaughtered by the IDF in Gaza.
People in Michigan heard Biden’s words, they heard the callous way in which he talked about innocent lives in Gaza, and they showed up to the polls to let him know that his choices have consequences at the polls. What Biden’s campaign doesn’t know is how many voters who otherwise might show up in the general, but not worry so much about an already-spoken for Primary vote, he is also losing all over the country. Particularly with regards to very young voters who see Israel’s policy of genocide and are standing on principle against it.
By the end of my typing of this article, the number had gone up to 38,000 votes against Joe Biden in the presidential primary in Michigan.
Are we listening now, or will people just howl about how these voters are wrong to oppose an administration that has suborned genocide against Gazans and thus endangered the lives of Arabs everywhere? Time will tell. It may be too late to win them back over. A ceasefire now would be wonderful, but there are 10s of thousands of dead children to contend with, and a ceasefire now won’t bring them back. it might not bring these voters back, either.