Biden wins Michigan primary but suffers Gaza protest vote

President Joe Biden has won Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary comfortably, despite a significant protest vote over strong US support for Israel in the war in Gaza.

Mr Biden won 81% of the vote, according to projections, but the “uncommitted” exceeded expectations with 13%.

His campaign will pay close attention to see if that result in the key swing state will spread nationwide.

Many voters have been angered by the US stance in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On Wednesday, activists from the group Listen to Michigan and its supporters hailed the size of the protest vote – more than 100,000 – as a victory.

They pledged to continue to pressure the Biden administration to back a ceasefire in Gaza and limit foreign aid to Israel.

“What is clear is that our president has a choice before him,” said Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with a large Arab-American population.

“It is my hope, Mr President, that you listen to us, that you choose the people of America over Benjamin Netanyahu.”

People were in tears at the organisation’s watch party on Tuesday night as tallies were updated.

The US is a close ally of Israel, providing it with billions of dollars in military aid.

Earlier this month the US vetoed a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, while proposing a draft of its own urging a temporary ceasefire.

Many people, including in Mr Biden’s own party, want the president to take a much stronger stance against Israel’s military campaign.

“I think he should be cognisant of it as he moves forward with his Middle East policy,” Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, said of the “uncommitted” vote.

“Because the truth is, he’s losing a lot of votes, not just Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, but young people.”

The “uncommitted” result could bolster similar protest efforts underway in states like Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

Mr Trump is also projected to easily win Tuesday’s Republican primary in the state, after what he called a “great day”.

Results so far from the primary contests – which the US political parties use to select their presidential candidate – indicate that the two men are on course to face off in November’s general election in a rematch of 2020.

Michigan is considered a critical swing state, which picked the winning president in the last two contests. It has the largest proportion of Arab-Americans in the country, but Mr Biden’s support for Israel appears to have cost him support among that demographic.

The war in Gaza began after Hamas’s attack in southern Israel on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.

Israel has launched a massive military operation in the Palestinian territory since then, with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas.

However, almost 30,000 people have been killed and 70,325 injured in the retaliatory campaign – most of them civilians, the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip says.

The huge toll has led to international pressure on Israel and calls for a ceasefire.

Tuesday does not mark the first time a significant portion of Michiganders opted to cast votes as “uncommitted”.

Around 19,000 residents did so in 2020’s primary and more than 21,601 in 2016. In 2008 it was 238,000 – after Barack Obama’s campaign encouraged them to do so, because he chose not to be on the ballot due to party squabbles.

But campaigners in Michigan have been organising for months to send Mr Biden a message of “no ceasefire, no vote” over the war in Gaza.

At Salina Intermediate School in Dearborn, the BBC spoke to Hala, 32, who said she voted “uncommitted”.

She did not “want to vote for Genocide Joe”, she explained – alluding to allegations made against the Israeli military during its campaign in Gaza, which Israel strongly denies.

Hala – who declined to share her last name – said she voted for Mr Biden last time, but was not sure she would do so again when the presidential election comes round. “Maybe, if he calls for an immediate ceasefire, but he’s not going to do that,” she said.

Some members of the state’s Armenian community also pushed for a protest vote over what they see as a failure of the Biden administration to address the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Other Democrats told the BBC on polling day that they remained supportive of Mr Biden, including Kim Murdough, an office manager at a church in the city of Flint.

“I voted Democrat. I personally don’t have an issue with anything that the administration has done,” she said.

She added that separate concerns about Mr Biden’s age – 81 – were not a deal-breaker for her. “I’d rather have someone in office that forgets a few things than a criminal,” she said, referencing Mr Trump, who faces federal and state criminal charges.

Margaret Won voted for Mr Biden, too. She is mostly happy with the work the president has done, though said he had been blocked in some of his aims by Republicans in Congress.

She said she wished the frontrunner presidential candidates were younger and said if Nikki Haley beat Mr Trump to the Republican nomination, she might get her vote.

Like dozens of other states, Michigan has open primary elections – which means Democrats, Republicans and independents were all able to cast votes, though they had to ask for a specific party’s ballot when casting their ballot.

The state’s remaining Republican delegates – who must be secured for a candidate to win their party’s nomination – will be formally awarded later at a convention this weekend.

During the present conflict between Israel and Hamas, the “uncommitted” movement gained endorsements from at least 39 state and local elected officials in Michigan, including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.

Ms Tlaib’s sister was the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan campaign.

Samraa Luqman, an activist with the Abandon Biden campaign, said her goal was to “oust somebody from office for having this many lives lost without calling for a ceasefire”.

Another woman, who did not want to be named, told the BBC she had even switched to the Republican party over the Middle Eastern conflict.

Most foreign policy analysts agree that Mr Trump, who has boasted of being the most pro-Israel president in US history, would be even less likely to challenge Israel’s Gaza policy if he returns to the White House next year.

Senator Gary Peters, from Michigan, told reporters at a meeting arranged by the Biden campaign on Monday that the president understood voters’ concerns about Gaza.

However, the White House has been reluctant to row back its support, sending billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and three times blocking a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.