Editor’s note: David Axelrod, CNN’s senior political commentator and host of “The Ax Files,” is a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama and chief strategist for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Met. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.view more opinions On CNN.
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Here’s a dirty little secret exposed in Tuesday’s Michigan primary. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are fierce rivals who desperately need each other.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump each easily won their primaries in the Wolverine State en route to an expected rematch. But the topic of the night was the votes they didn’t get, suggesting the extent to which each side relies on fear of the other to woo rebellious voters in the fall.
Biden received more than 80% of the vote on Tuesday, winning 115 of Michigan’s 117 delegates. However, just over 100,000 Michiganders (13% of those who voted in the Democratic primary) expressed opposition to the president’s handling of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas and called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. I voted for “irresponsible” instead of Biden because of my demands. .
The movement took root especially in the suburbs of Detroit. a sizable Arab American population. More than half of voters in Dearborn and Hamtramck sent an emphatic message of protest, choosing “dishonest” over the incumbent president they overwhelmingly supported four years ago.
Biden’s vulnerability to younger and progressive voters also affected the state’s college communities. In Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, nearly one in five voters chose “irresponsible.”
These voters are unlikely to support Mr. Trump in the fall. But even if they voted for a third-party candidate or simply stayed home, their grievances have meaning.
Four years ago, Biden defeated Trump in Michigan by about 150,000 votes. Trump won the state in 2016, defeating Hillary Clinton by just over 10,000 votes. A fierce battle for Michigan’s 15 electoral votes is expected this year, with 100,000 Democrats withholding their votes potentially decisive.
Eight months is an eternity in politics. On the eve of the primary, Biden suggested that a second cessation of fighting in Gaza may be near and that no one can predict what the conflict will look like in November.
But the president’s vulnerability with young voters goes beyond this issue. Even before the Middle East war, Biden was struggling to connect with young voters, whom he led by more than 20 points four years ago.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose political group is spearheading the Biden effort, is leaning toward a fall matchup and on Tuesday urged voters to refrain from protest voting.
“Every vote not cast for Joe Biden supports a second term for Trump,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, and was the author of the Muslim immigration ban when Trump was president. I remembered that.
It was a harbinger of things to come. Mr. Biden is banking on the specter of Mr. Trump to lure young progressive voters back to his base. His campaign is expected to draw sharp contrasts with Trump on a range of issues, including abortion rights, climate change and student loan forgiveness, and rebuild this element of the coalition.
Tuesday’s Republican primary presents a similar challenge for Trump. Nikki Haley received 68% of the vote, but received almost 27%, or nearly 300,000 votes.
This is perhaps becoming increasingly obvious because, unlike Haley’s home state of South Carolina, the state is neutral and neither candidate has had the opportunity to campaign or advertise extensively. It’s become the purest test of what’s going on: Mr. Trump has the problem of being college-educated and independent – leaning voters.
Haley continues to enjoy her role as Cassandra, warning on Tuesday that nominating Trump for a third time would be “suicidal for our country.”
“We are a ship with a hole,” she said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. Haley said she will continue to participate in races that provide a “life raft” for Republicans.
There’s no indication that enough Republicans will hop in Haley’s dinghy and take her to her destination this year. Trump appears poised to confirm her nomination by mid-March.
But her presence on the campaign trail continues to highlight significant vulnerabilities in the Trump presidency. By portraying the former president as a legally intimidated and vengeful chaos machine, Haley is articulating the concerns shared by voters, especially suburban voters, that Trump needs in November. There is.
“They can say Donald Trump won. I’ll tell him that,” Haley said in her opening night speech in South Carolina. “But as an incumbent Republican, he didn’t get 40% of the vote in the primary.”
Haley has hinted that she may drop out of the race after next week’s Super Tuesday, when voting will take place in 15 states and American Samoa. But she has exposed a major weakness in President Trump that will have repercussions in Michigan and beyond.
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Trump shares Biden’s dilemma. It would be unbearable for the votes that were not obtained in the primary election to be stolen by third-party candidates in the fall.
His relief package is a harsh rebuke to Biden, who has suffered from persistently low approval ratings on immigration, inflation, crime and a widespread sense that he is simply too old and lackluster to be president. That’s probably true.
In Michigan, Biden and Trump moved one step closer to the rematch many Americans fear, but the missed primary votes underscored how codependent they are.
Each man is plagued with doubts and relies on the other to bring back discouraged voters.