In Michigan, some voters 'uncommitted' to Biden; Trump seen beating Haley

President Joe Biden's support for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza was being put to the test on Tuesday in Michigan, home to a large Arab American constituency where Democratic voters have been urged to mark their primary ballots as "uncommitted" in protest.

President Joe Biden's support for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza was being put to the test on Tuesday in Michigan, home to a large Arab American constituency where Democratic voters have been urged to mark their primary ballots as "uncommitted" in protest. Biden, a Democrat, and Republican former President Donald Trump are expected to easily win their party's primaries in the state on Tuesday. But the vote count for both is being closely watched for signs the candidates face wavering support within their own parties.

Voters trickled into a polling site early on Tuesday at a school in Dearborn, a liberal city that is the epicenter of the pushback against Biden's Israel strategy. Of the seven voters Reuters interviewed before 11 a.m. (1600 GMT), six said they were voting "uncommitted" and one said he was voting for Trump. But in Detroit, Michigan's largest city, most Democrats interviewed said they would stick with Biden despite misgivings about his Israel policy, because of their dislike for Trump or Republican policies on abortion rights.

Biden and Trump both want strong showings in Michigan, a battleground state expected to play a decisive role in the head-to-head U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5. Biden beat Trump in Michigan by 2.8 percentage points in the 2020 election. Many in Michigan's Arab American community who supported Biden in 2020 are now outraged, along with some progressive Democrats, over Biden's unwavering support for Israel's Gaza offensive in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.

"America's blind support of Israel is just unacceptable. I just worry that Biden doesn't get it," said one uncommitted Dearborn voter, Sajjad, a 42-year-old doctor who didn't want to give his full name. Late on Monday, Biden said Israel had agreed to halt military activities in Gaza for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan expected to begin on the evening of March 10, as Hamas studied a draft for a truce that includes a prisoner-hostage exchange.

It should have happened sooner, said Michael Bristol, 21, a student at Wayne State University who said he cast an uncommitted vote. "I know and understand Biden can’t snap his fingers and make this OK, but a stronger message of ceasefire would have worked," he said.

Thaddeus Kolon, 72, a retired electrician and disabled veteran who was casting a vote for Biden in downtown Detroit, said he didn't think the president "gets a lot of credit for what he does," adding "and also the alternative scares the daylights out of me." Kolon said he almost voted uncommitted but then decided he was not a one-issue voter. Engage Action and Listen to Michigan say they're aiming for 10% of Michigan’s Democratic primary voters to choose "uncommitted," a symbolically significant 10,000 votes – about equal to Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss to Trump in Michigan.

Democrats, overall, support Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict by 61%, February polling by Harvard-Harris shows. U.S. voters, overall, are more concerned about "extremism" than any other issue, Reuters/Ipsos polling showed on Tuesday. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and some others in the party have warned that if Democrats failed to support Biden, they could hand the swing state and the country to Trump in November.

A senior Biden campaign official said: "We're taking this seriously. The president himself has said repeatedly that he hears these demonstrators and that he thinks that their cause is important." Michigan is always a closely decided state, Whitmer, a co-chair for Biden's campaign, said in an interview with MSNBC.

"It's going to be important that, you know, the administration continued to engage with leaders and individuals in the Palestinian community, the Muslim community, the Arab American community, as well as the Jewish community," she said. On Feb. 1, Biden won a strong pledge of support from union autoworkers, a Michigan voting bloc no less crucial to his reelection bid. The state is home to nearly 20% of all U.S. auto production, more than any state in the country.

"We are going to keep highlighting the contrast between Biden and Trump and once that becomes clear, we fully expect these voters, who have walked away from Biden, to come back," said LaShawn English, UAW Director Region 1, which represents eight counties in Michigan. DUELING REPUBLICAN CONTESTS

Michigan turnout for Trump rival Nikki Haley, who won nearly 40% of Republican votes in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday, could offer signs about the number of Republicans who harbor doubts about a second four-year Trump term. Michigan's Republican Party, beset by internal turmoil, will allocate some delegates to the party's July convention based on Tuesday's primary results.

Rival factions are holding dueling party caucuses on Saturday that will award the bulk of the delegates. It was unclear, however, which caucus results will be official. Opinion polls show Trump holding an average statewide lead of nearly 57 percentage points over Haley, according to the poll tracking website FiveThirtyEight.

Still, the results in Michigan will be watched to see how much Trump struggles to attract large numbers of moderates and traditional Republicans, voters he will likely need to win back the White House in November. Despite having lost to Trump in every primary race, Haley has performed well with moderate voters and has vowed to carry on despite having no clear path to the nomination.

"I'm not going to stop when 70% of Americans say they don't want Donald Trump or Joe Biden," Haley told CNN on Tuesday. "We're gonna give them an option."

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)