The President of the United States, Joe Biden, went to New York yesterday to record an interview with comedian and late night host Seth Meyers, ordered an ice cream at the famous Van Leeuwen ice cream shop and proceeded to launch an optimistic announcement about the war in Gaza: "My National Security adviser tells me that we are close, but it is not closed yet", he said in front of the cameras, and ice cream in hand, about the progress of the negotiations for the cessation of hostilities: "My hope is that next Monday we will have a ceasefire".
The time chosen to launch this message, on the eve of the Michigan primary, does not seem coincidental. The Midwest state has the highest number and percentage of Arabs in the entire country: 211,405 people, 2.1%. His support is decisive in the run-up to the presidential elections in November: in 2020, Biden won Donald Trump by only 2.78% of the vote in Michigan, one of the six key states in this election, where the Republican tycoon will beat by the minimum (0.23%) in 2016.
Biden's unwavering support for Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza has earned him rejection from the progressive sector of the Democratic Party and a loss of popularity among people of Arab descent and among young voters, and Michigan leads in both demographic groups. For this reason, the results of the primaries yesterday, Tuesday, in which a comfortable victory for the president was expected -with the anecdotal competition of Dean Phillips-, will put the electoral thermometer on the president's involvement in the crisis in the East medium
Arab and progressive voter groups called for a protest vote against the president, whom they blame for failing to stem the bleeding of 30,000 dead and two million displaced in Gaza by the Israeli offensive in retaliation for Hamas attacks on 7 October, which left 1,200 dead.
Congresswoman for Michigan Rashida Tlaib, the only one of Palestinian origin in the House of Representatives, requested a vote of punishment for Biden. This has also been done by two influential organizations, Our Revolution and Listen to Michigan, who asked citizens to vote "uncommitted" or blank in these primaries. Faced with the expected victory of Biden, the expectation was placed on the participation and the total number of protest votes. Our Revolution, closely linked to the base of supporters of the progressive senator and ex-candidate Bernie Sanders, set its goal at 10% of the electorate.
As is often the case with a sitting president seeking re-election, Biden has not faced serious competition, and his team has not invested much time or money in the primary process, with its sights set on the November election. . Especially in Michigan: The last time he was seen around the state was on February 1, at a meeting with motor unions, where he was met with pro-Palestinian protests.
On the Republican side, which also held primaries in Michigan on Tuesday, the race for the nomination is also almost decided: Trump has won four comfortable victories in the first four dates of the electoral calendar - Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and the Carolinas. South – and the polls predict a resounding victory in Michigan: they give him 79.9% of the support, compared to 18% of the only rival left standing, Nikki Haley.
Despite the fact that in all the primaries held so far Trump has obtained worse results than the polls predicted, it has not been enough for Haley to establish himself as a solid alternative. But it has shown that there is a base of Republican voters disillusioned with the tycoon, which the ex-governor is clinging to in order to stay alive in the fight for the White House.
The state of Michigan, where 55 Republican delegates and 117 Democrats are distributed, is the last date before the decisive date of Super Tuesday, in which 17 states and territories will decide about a third of the delegates sent to the national conventions , in which the candidates of each party will be elected to the White House. Haley has vowed not to retire until then, March 5, but her continuity in the election race will be thrown into even greater doubt if Trump sweeps again tonight.
