The results from Tuesday’s Michigan Democratic primary, where roughly 13% of voters chose “uncommitted,” might as well be a Rorschach test. Those who want to dismiss the vote — largely a protest President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war — can say the share of uncommitted voters was only slightly above the 11% who voted “uncommitted” in the 2012 Democratic primary, when Barack Obama ran as an incumbent. (Obama won Michigan handily that November.) Those arguing for the protest vote’s significance can argue that the raw number of more than 100,000 uncommitted votes was much bigger than in 2012, a remarkable feat for an organized protest effort only a few weeks old.
But there was no ambiguity on the Republican side: Former President Donald Trump underperformed his polls yet again.
Yes, he easily defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 68.2% to 26.6%. But pre-election surveys gave Trump an even greater edge of 50 or even 60 percentage points.
There are a number of possible reasons for this pattern, with varying implications for November.
By itself, that discrepancy means little; there’d been few recent polls in Michigan, and primaries are harder to poll than general elections. (In 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Michigan Democratic primary when every pre-election poll showed Hillary Clinton ahead by 10 to 30%.) However, Michigan marks the fourth consecutive contest in which Trump’s final margin has fallen short of pre-contest polling averages. In Iowa, polling averages projected a 34% margin over the second-place. The actual result? Under 30%. In New Hampshire, an 18-point margin became an 11-point win. In South Carolina, a 28-point margin became a 20-point win.
There are a number of possible reasons for this pattern, with varying implications for November. Perhaps these are mere polling errors, though four contests in a row with the same error begins to stretch that explanation. Perhaps more Democrats and anti-Trump…
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