--- title: In Michigan, a Win and a Warning For Joe Biden description: Biden easily won Michigan's Democratic primary, but a high share of "uncommitted" voters laid bare the frustration within the party's base. canonical: https://time.com/6835843/michigan-primary-biden-delegates/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-02-28T03:01:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:39:59.453Z article:section: Politics og:title: A Win And Warning For Biden in Michigan og:description: Biden easily won Michigan's primary, but a high share of "uncommitted" voters protesting his Israel policy laid bare the frustration within the party's base. og:url: https://time.com/6835843/michigan-primary-biden-delegates/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5115a41a17cb131c/698a48f24ee2620c3331cb41/GettyImages-2043560754.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Michigan Holds Its Primary Election og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A Win And Warning For Biden in Michigan twitter:description: Biden easily won Michigan's primary, but a high share of "uncommitted" voters protesting his Israel policy laid bare the frustration within the party's base. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5115a41a17cb131c/698a48f24ee2620c3331cb41/GettyImages-2043560754.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # In Michigan, a Win and a Warning for Biden > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=98ae9572-de7c-434e-906f-5005dcda7acb&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: In Michigan, a Win and a Warning for Biden [Watch (HLS stream): In Michigan, a Win and a Warning for Biden](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Onv0LPKO.m3u8) (1:31)  _Published 2024-02-28. President Joe Biden won the Democratic primaries in Michigan on Tuesday night, continuing his march to the party’s nomination despite a robust grassroots effort encouraging voters to vote “uncommitted” to register objections to his handling of Israel's ongoing war in Gaza._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Feb 28, 2024 3:01 AM UTC President Joe Biden won the Democratic primaries in Michigan on Tuesday night, continuing his march to the party’s nomination despite a robust grassroots effort encouraging voters to vote “uncommitted” to register objections to his handling of Israel's ongoing war in Gaza.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Feb 28, 2024 3:01 AM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Two parallel truths danced around each other Tuesday in Michigan, as President Joe Biden easily won the state’s primary, but heads into Super Tuesday lightly bruised as double-digit shares of voters in far-flung counties lodged protest votes against him. Even among the biggest Biden supporters, who were quick to note he snagged the vast majority of its 117 delegates, there was the annoying fact that some plenty-loud Democrats in the state urged their neighbors to reject Biden and his place as the only major candidate on the ballot. (Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, and author Marianne Williamson were also on the ballot, but she has dropped out in the span since the ballots were finalized in December.) Instead, Biden critics urged like-minded primary voters to say they were “[uncommitted](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/27/american-muslims-helped-biden-win-in-2020-will-they-abandon-him-now)” as a signal to Biden that his continued support for Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas is going to cost him. In the months since the attack, Muslims and Arab Americans in Michigan have been particularly harsh on Biden, making clear they wanted to punish him for not doing more to stop what they see as Israel’s overblown reaction to a surprise Hamas attack that left [1,200](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/11/1212458974/israel-revises-death-toll-hamas-attacks-oct-7) dead. Since Israel lept to action, [29,000](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/more-than-29000-palestinians-have-been-killed-in-gaza-since-wars-start-health-ministry-says) Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, large parts of Gaza have been leveled, [1.9 million](https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15564.doc.htm#:~:text=A%20staggering%2085%20per%20cent,proposing%20that%20Palestinians%20should%20be) people are displaced, and a quarter of the population of Gaza—[576,000](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/one-quarter-gazas-people-one-step-away-famine-un-says-2024-02-27/) people—are bordering on famine. In a show of unity at rallies and online, Black voters and younger voters lent their voices to those calling on Biden to join them in demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire. In Washington and at Biden’s campaign base in Wilmington, Del., the general attitude has been one of pique in the face of mutiny over perhaps the greatest wedge issue in the Democratic Party. Biden advisers are annoyed but not worried about the insurgent voices on the Left calling for a reversal of the long-standing U.S. practice of publicly supporting Israel. There’s also this fact: Biden [seldom](https://time.com/6335284/joe-biden-xi-jinping-china-polling/) takes into account domestic politics when it comes to foreign policy, and there is no plausible way Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a _de facto_ co-Secretary of State during his eight years as Vice President, was going to be anything but supportive of Israel—even if he is not particularly [fond](https://time.com/6384946/biden-netanyahu-zionist-zelensky/) of the nation’s Prime Minister or how he’s prosecuted the response to Oct. 7. Taken from a macro level, Biden’s showing in Michigan on its own is hardly reason for him to lose sleep. But it fits with a problematic series of small-scale shifts inside the Democratic Party that could cost him come November. Keeping in mind Biden came within 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin of an Electoral College [tie](https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940689086/narrow-wins-in-these-key-states-powered-biden-to-the-presidency) with Donald Trump in 2020, the micro-fraying of the Democratic coalition has left strategists plenty worried. The “uncommitted” crowd picked up at least one delegate, meeting the Democratic National Committee’s qualifying threshold of 15% support in a congressional district to claim a ticket to the convention in Chicago. That earliest sign of discontent came from the district that includes Dearborn, the largest per capita Muslim population in the United States. That district’s representative in the House, the first and only Palestinian-American member of Congress Rep. Rashida Tlaib, recorded robocalls for a group leading the “uncommitted” effort, which is led by her sister. “Send a clear message to President Biden: Change course on Gaza, pursue peace, save lives, and win back the trust of the voting coalition who got him to the White House in 2020,” Tlaib said in a recorded call sent to 87,000 people in her Dearborn-area district from Listen to Michigan and Our Revolution, a progressive group that grew out of Sen. Bernier Sanders’ political machine. At other points, support for the “uncommitted” position climbed north of 15% statewide, giving hope that those activists could compete for those delegates, too. Message sent, for sure. Received? To be seen. There really is no yardstick against which to judge Biden’s performance. The last time a Democratic incumbent President sought renomination was 2012, when Barack Obama won 89% support in Michigan—but, importantly, that was in a system run as a caucus, not a primary. In 1996, incumbent President Bill Clinton didn’t even appear on the state’sprimary ballot as he sought a second term and “uncommitted” [prevailed](https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/FederalElections96%5FPresidentialPrimaryElectionResults.pdf) with 87% of the vote. (On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump coasted to another primary win against former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.) Biden allies say his relationships with Black voters, union members, and suburban moms are a firewall. But among all three blocs, enthusiasm appears to be shrinking and the relative share of the electoral pie could be insufficient. In 2020, just 11% of the electorate identified as Black, according to [exit polls](https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-results/house/0). One-in-five voters [said](https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-results) they were part of a union household in 2020; union membership now [stands](https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/news-release/unionmembership%5Fmichigan.htm#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20union%20members%20accounted,of%20Labor%20Statistics%20reported%20today.) at 13%, down from 16% a decade earlier. And while suburban voters powered Biden’s 2020 coalition—55% of his votes came from the ‘burbs—he’s not so hot there these days, especially with women. The latest NBC News poll [finds](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/biden-relied-suburban-women-help-win-2020-campaign-trying-keep-coaliti-rcna137369) Biden underperforming with suburban women; among all women, he is up 10 points over Trump, but in the suburbs the advantage falls to 6 points. And he’s trailing by a point among white suburban women, a statistical tie in effect. To be sure, Biden remains the plain frontrunner for his party’s nomination. He [won](https://time.com/6576782/trump-wins-new-hampshire-primary-2024/) the New Hampshire primary as a write-in candidate despite [keeping](https://time.com/6315461/joe-biden-new-hampshire-primary-ballot/) his name off the ballot in solidarity with a new DNC calendar that he ordered. And then there’s the [money](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/politics/campaign-finance-takeaways-january/index.html). In January, the Biden campaign raised $15.7 million and ended the month with $56 million in the bank. By contrast, Trump raised $8.8 million and closed the month with $30.5 million in cash on hand. Put plainly: Biden won four years agowith a coalition that has been slowly fraying in front of national Democrats’ face. Tuesday was the first piece of ballot-box proof. It was a snag, not an unraveling. But with swing state polls [showing](https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/12/14/biden-trails-trump-in-7-battleground-states-shedding-support-among-key-demographics/?sh=3cee6a7f61aa) Biden trailing, a loud minority inside his own camp looking to bleed his support could leave him lurching into the general election.The margins are incredibly tight. After all, Biden won Michigan in 2020 by [154,000](https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/michigan/) votes and the state’s Arab population today has grown to about 300,000, and the Muslim voting pool is more than 200,000\. Biden can scant afford to have [discontent](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/27/american-muslims-helped-biden-win-in-2020-will-they-abandon-him-now) inside those populations if he plans to be a player come Michigan’s autumn. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript [00:00] President Joe Biden has won the Michigan Democratic primary [00:09] overcoming several lesser-known Challengers a large push for [00:14] the state's voters to mark uncommitted on their ballots in protest [00:18] of the body of the ministrations handling of the Israel Hamas [00:22] war in Gaza. [00:25] The bad guy Minecraft to listen to us exactly why we're doing [00:30] this. This is the only way we can bring the black Democrats [00:33] that you weren't going to unless you call for an ultimately [00:37] Inspire. Why didn't want to stay by 3 percentage points in 2020 [00:41] and Tuesday's results give an indication of his standing [00:45] in the state that can once again play a significant role in whether [00:49] he wins the election in November. [00:50] The Associated Press has called a Michigan Republican [00:53] primary for former President Donald Trump who defeated rival [00:58] Nikki Haley and a swing state that is expected to play a crucial [01:02] role in the November election. [01:04] Trump is now swept all early State contests and his team is hoping [01:09] to lock up. [01:10] The delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination [01:13] by mid-march. All Tuesday's results. [01:15] Give an indication of where the state is at the head of November [01:19] only 16 of the states 55 [01:22] presidential delegates will be awarded based. [01:25] Results the remaining $39 [01:27] will be awarded at a March 2nd State GOP convention. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6835843/michigan-primary-biden-delegates/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6835843/michigan-primary-biden-delegates/"},"headline":"In Michigan, a Win and a Warning for Biden","datePublished":"2024-02-28T03:01:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T07:39:59.453Z","description":"A protest vote effort focused on Biden's Israel stance drew significant support.","url":"https://time.com/6835843/michigan-primary-biden-delegates/","keywords":["The D.C. 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