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UPDATE, 7:42 p.m. PT: Joe Biden is having the biggest victory of the night, with about 80% of the vote in Michigan’s Democratic primary, but a lot of the focus of coverage across cable and streaming networks is the size of the “uncommitted” vote as a warning sign for the general election.
The “uncommitted” share of the vote was at 14.2% with 28% in.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump as garnering 67% to Nikki Haley’s 28%.
Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, weighed in on the punditry. “Trump is currently only beating Haley by about 37 points in the Michigan primary. Meanwhile, Biden is on track to beat ;uncommitted’ by about 65 points. But guess who the media is going to say is ‘in trouble.’”
PREVIOUSLY: The victories of Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the Michigan primary were not in doubt tonight, but networks focused on the votes they didn’t get.
For Biden, the biggest rival wasn’t Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), but “uncommitted,” a protest vote organized by pro-Palestinian groups and progressives upset over the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) encouraged “uncommitted” votes in a state that has a heavy population of Arab-American voters, but the rifts among progressives have been apparent in the wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and disruptions calling for a permanent ceasefire.
The state will be crucial in the general election as one of the most important swing states. Biden won the state in 2020, so coverage across news networks, from CNN to NewsNation to ABC News Live, was focusing on the size of the “uncommitted” vote for signs of serious fissures in the Democratic coalition.
While Biden had a lopsided victory, the “uncommitted” vote in the state was running at about 16%.
CNN’s Jake Tapper said that those leading the drive to vote “uncommitted” were likely to exceed their own expectations, although it is still unclear how outside the norm that is from recent election cycles.
The network’s David Chalian said, “There’s always a danger of us over-interpreting this.” But he said that “this is what a protest looks like. This is a push for a policy change. The X factor that we do not know today is, where is the Israel-Hamas situation going to be in August, in October, when people are voting.”
Organizers of the protest vote, however, are planning demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Meanwhile, Nikki Haley was drawing roughly 1/3 of the Republican vote, as pundits parse just how much of a problem that poses for Trump in the general election. Haley has vowed to stay in the race at least through Super Tuesday, but she has stepped up her attacks on Trump and his fitness for office. She lost the South Carolina primary by 20 percentage points, but that was better than some polls suggested.
More to come.
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