What Biden and Trump learned in Michigan

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Good morning. First, a quick recap of last night’s Law & Order: Presidential to start: The US Supreme Court agreed to take up an appeal over whether Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. Hours later, an Illinois court joined Colorado and Maine in throwing Trump off the state’s presidential primary ballot, though the order remains on hold.

Welcome to US Election Countdown. There are 249 days until the election, and we are digesting the results of the Michigan primaries. While Joe Biden and Donald Trump continue to skate towards the official nominations of their respective parties, warning signals have begun to flash.

They both won their primaries comfortably in the battleground state on Tuesday, but their victory margins cloaked voter discontent that will have both campaigns pondering their vulnerabilities.

Biden won the Democratic primary with more than 81 per cent of the vote. But more than 101,000 Democratic voters — or roughly 13 per cent — ticked the “uncommitted” box at the urging of activists and Arab-American leaders in protest at Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Biden is under intense political pressure to bring about an end to the fighting. Earlier this week, the president said he was hopeful about an Israel-Hamas ceasefire. But to win Michigan in the presidential election, he’ll need to redouble efforts to shore up support in the state on foreign and domestic issues, according to the FT’s James Politi and Lauren Fedor [free to read].

Michigan, among the US states with the highest percentage of Arab Americans, is a pivotal swing state that has been decided on narrow margins in recent elections: Biden won in 2020 by just 150,000 votes, while Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 ballots. About 140,000 Michigan Arab Americans voted in the 2020 election.

As for Trump, he got 68.2 per cent of the Republican vote to Nikki Haley’s 26.6 per cent. Though he won every Michigan county, college-educated voters were less convinced.

Haley won between 34 and 44 per cent of the vote in three counties with major college campuses including the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, along with the smaller Kalamazoo College’s county.

Results from the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries revealed similar signals about Trump’s weakness among college-educated voters.

Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

• Mitch McConnell, who has faced repeated questions over his health and fitness, announced he would step down as Senate Republican leader in November.

• Biden underwent a physical on Wednesday, with his doctor declaring him “fit for duty” after finding “no new concerns” about his health.

• Montana senator Steve Daines, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has revived the power of the party boss as he takes charge of the Republican Senate primaries. (Washington Post)

• Go inside No Labels, the confusing third-party group that wants to make some kind of a splash in the 2024 election. The group will reportedly make a decision on whether to run a candidate by next week. (The Atlantic, Intelligencer)

Behind the scenes

Anybody got half a billion dollars they feel like lending to Trump?

Trump’s legal team yesterday lost its bid to delay enforcement of a $450mn fine the former president owes in his New York civil fraud case while his team appeals against the verdict [free to read].

The former president would not be able to pay the bill (which could end up costing upwards of $550mn), said his lawyers, who offered a $100mn bond instead. Justice Anil Singh declined to accept the offer.

Trump likes to use campaign funds to cover his legal bills, but under US law, he cannot tap his main campaign for the bond. However, he could use Save America, the so-called leadership political action committee he controls, according to Erin Chlopak, a campaign finance expert at the Campaign Legal Center.

“It’s pretty clear the [Federal Election Commission] would not find it to be unlawful to use that money to pay for the bond in this matter,” Chlopak told the FT’s Alex Rogers. But Save America has nowhere near enough money to do that — it only had $6.3mn on hand at the end of January.

A murkier option would be having a rich friend pay at least part of the bond. That would probably be allowed, according to Chlopak, as long as there was no evidence that the payment was in effect a campaign contribution to help re-elect Trump. 

Datapoint

The highest proportion of Democrats’ “uncommitted” ballots were cast in Michigan’s Wayne and Washtenaw counties, which include the Detroit suburb of Dearborn and the University of Michigan’s flagship Ann Arbor campus, respectively.

Wayne County was expected to be a hub of support for the “uncommitted movement”. More than half the population of Dearborn — which lies just outside the state’s largest city, Detroit — is Arab American, according to the latest census data. Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American, represents part of this suburb in Congress, and her sister is the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, the group behind the protest movement.

Neighbouring Washtenaw County, however, just edged out Wayne County for the highest share of “uncommitted votes”, at 17.2 per cent. 

The percentage of “uncommitted” voters in the college town of Ann Arbor was reported to have hit 19 per cent. The University of Michigan had a student body of more than 51,000 as of 2022. Its on-campus tensions about the Israel-Hamas war have made national headlines.

The data points to a possible weakness for Biden in his support among Arab Americans and young people. 

Recent opinion surveys have Trump ahead of Biden in Michigan in a general election head-to-head.

Viewpoints

• All the consequential elections around the globe have the appeal of student council president races, writes Robin Harding.

• Edward Luce welcomes us to the US’s booming year from hell, wherein strong economic growth cannot heal the nation’s divisions. Edward — who comes from a family of politicians — explains why he got into journalism in this video.

• The US is unique in that its politico-entertainment complex means that losers can stay in the political game — and even build an identity around a loss, says Janan Ganesh.

• Nikki Haley’s quixotic campaign against Trump could have something to do with making her voice as strong as possible at the Republican nominating convention in July. (Politico Magazine)