The Media Takes The Wrong Lesson From The Michigan Primary

The Michigan primary contained many clues that the media is wrongly ignoring to focus on a protest vote.

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The Lesson From The Michigan Primary Isn’t What The Media Thinks It Is

An incumbent Democratic president rolled into Michigan and got hit with a double-digit protest vote in the primary.

That president was Barack Obama in 2012, who had nearly 11% of the Democratic primary electorate vote uncommitted.

In 2024, Joe Biden faced an organized uncommitted protest vote against him over Gaza, and that vote got 13% of the electorate. The uncommitted Democratic primary vote was almost non-existent in 2016 and 2020 because Sen. Bernie Sanders was on the primary ballot, which provides some insight into who these uncommitted voters are.

Sen. Sanders disavowed the 2024 effort, but the bulk of these voters were almost certainly his supporters. One question the media failed to ask the uncommitted voters is who they voted for in the 2020 primary.

The protest vote in Michigan is important, but it is not as big of a problem for Biden as some in the media suggest, because the protest is over policy, and policies change.

In fact, Biden’s policy already has. On February 13, he conditioned future military aid to Israel following international law. If Israel refuses to pledge to follow international law, their military aid will be cut off.

A months-long ceasefire will be taking effect soon, and there is a strong possibility that Biden will be campaigning on rebuilding Gaza by the fall.

Policy problems can be solved.

Even if all 100,000 protest voters don’t vote for Biden in November, their numbers are still smaller than the margin that Biden won the state by in 2020.

By no means should Biden ignore the protest vote, but it is definitely being overblown by a corporate media that is more interested in horserace coverage than context. Biden got 81% of the vote, but some in the corporate media want to focus on a normally sized protest vote percentage in Michigan.

The problems on the Republican side are a lesson that should be talked about, and we will do so below.