President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will win their respective parties’ primaries in Michigan on Tuesday, CNN projects.
Biden overcame an activist-led push to lodge protest votes over his response to Israel’s war with Hamas, although the effort had surpassed 16% of the vote by 9 p.m.
Biden is on a glide course to the Democratic nomination for a second term, while the former president barrels toward the GOP nod for the third straight election.
Trump’s win further shuts the door on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s hopes of building momentum ahead of next week’s Super Tuesday contests, when more than one-third of the party’s delegates are at stake.
While Biden easily won the Democratic race, the results carried some warning signs for the president. He faced organized resistance led by Arab and Muslim Americans, as anger over the administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza sparked a campaign to convince Democratic voters to cast protest ballots for “uncommitted.”
The effort, called “Listen to Michigan,” was endorsed by Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and former Rep. Andy Levin, and backed by progressive groups such as Our Revolution, the organization spun out of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. (Sanders had no part in that decision, according to a spokesperson, and is supporting Biden.)
The Michigan primary was moved up near the front of the Democratic presidential nominating calendar this year. With Biden’s encouragement, party officials demoted Iowa and New Hampshire from their traditional spots on the calendar in hopes of building a more diverse lineup of early voting states, which typically command attention and winnow the party’s field of contenders.
Michigan is also among…
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