Tangle - The Michigan primary results.

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

The Michigan primary. On Tuesday, Democratic and Republican voters participated in the Michigan primary, giving the first indication of where the most enthusiastic voters stand in this critical swing state heading into the 2024 election.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (2:50), Today’s story (4:34), Right’s take (6:56), Left’s take (10:39), Isaac’s take (14:51), Listener question (18:31), Under the Radar (20:56), Numbers (21:44), Have a nice day (22:49)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul. Today's episode is edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly.

Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode,

we're going to be talking about the Michigan primary, the results we got from the primary on Tuesday, some of the protests vote toward Joe Biden, what it means, lots of good stuff to kind of dissect here. Before we jump in, I have two quick notes at the top. First of all, an editor's note. Yesterday, we referenced a statistical analysis that estimated 50,000 Russian troops had died in the war in Ukraine. The link to that story went to an analysis conducted by two Russian news outlets in July of 2023. Those same news outlets have conducted that study again just this past weekend and estimated that 75,000 Russian troops have been killed. Meanwhile, I didn't note this yesterday, but it is worth noting that U.S. intelligence estimates over 300,000 Russians have been killed or injured in the war. So just giving you some updated numbers and then also an alternative source there. Also, we got some feedback yesterday that I wanted to share. In my answer to a reader question about

Aaron Bushnell, I objected to the way some people were framing his suicide. And I said that I doubted that his self-immolation changed anyone's mind, but if it had, I wanted to hear about it. One reader or listener dissented. I'm not sure whether they heard me on the podcast or read it in the newsletter, but they wrote in and said, Bushnell's suicide reminds me of a self-immolation by Norman Morrison at the Pentagon protesting our war in Vietnam. The official in charge of the war wrote that Morrison's suicide changed his attitude about the war. It and Buddhist immolations changed my life profoundly. I accepted my part in the war through paying taxes that paid for it and began refusing to pay war taxes. I became active in organizing against the war, volunteering to make a statewide student

union against the war. And this reader or listener went on to say that Bushnell's self-immolation had a very big impact on him. So sharing an alternative perspective there. I've said a lot about this. We're probably going to talk about it on the Sunday podcast, I'm sure, with Ari. So you might be hearing some more about it in the future, but wanted to share those thoughts. All right, with that out of the way, we're going to jump in with some quick hits. First up, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Republican from Kentucky, announced he was stepping down from his leadership position after the 2024 election. He is the longest serving Senate leader in congressional history.

The Supreme Court announced that it will hear arguments the week of April 22nd to determine whether Donald Trump is immune from federal charges for his role in January 6th. The date is later than expected and could mean a conclusion to the trial does not come until after the election. Number three, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the Republican, declared a state of emergency as the Smokehouse Creek Fire became the state's second largest wildfire ever, now larger than the state of Rhode Island. Number four, Hunter Biden testified in a closed-door hearing before the House Oversight Committee and Judiciary Committees as part of the impeachment inquiry into his father. And number five, the House of Representatives is set to vote on a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown on Thursday.

Former President Donald Trump has won the GOP Michigan primary over former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. And President Biden won the Democratic Michigan primary. Activists in Michigan are also claiming victory in their push for a protest vote. Voters who cast their ballots not for a candidate, but for uncommitted in protest of President Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Donald Trump has now defeated Nikki Haley six straight times, but she says she isn't going anywhere as the results continue to show a fractured Republican party. And President Biden's big win here does come with a wake-up call amid a sizable protest vote over the war in Gaza. On Tuesday, Democratic and Republican voters participated in the Michigan primary,

giving the first indication of where the most enthusiastic voters in this critical swing state stand heading into the 2024 election. Most of the focus Tuesday night was on the Democratic side, where President Joe Biden won the primary with 81% of the vote. However, Biden faced a challenge from Michigan's Arab and Muslim leaders, vote. However, Biden faced a challenge from Michigan's Arab and Muslim leaders who called on voters to voice their displeasure with Biden about how he has handled Israel's invasion of Gaza by voting uncommitted. A coalition of pro-Palestinian groups form the Listen to Michigan campaign, holding rallies, phone banking, running digital ads, and sending out mailers asking voters to cast uncommitted ballots as a way to pressure Biden into calling for a ceasefire while showing him the weight their coalition pulls in Michigan. The group started small but was bolstered by backing from Michigan Representative Rashida

Tlaib. The state has a history of voting uncommitted in the primary. In 2012, uncommitted received 11% of the state's vote in then-President Barack Obama's primary victory. This year, Listen to Michigan aimed to get 10,000 votes, the margin Trump won the state by in 2016. They blew past their goal, instead registering over 100,000 uncommitted tallies, roughly 13 percent of everyone who voted in the Democratic primary. In 2020, Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Michigan by about 154,000 votes. Today's choice was not Donald Trump or Joe Biden, Michigan State Representative Alibas Faratz told the Wall Street Journal. It was a choice about who we want our Democratic nominee to be.

A broad coalition today coalesced around the idea that we want a nominee who can clearly call for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, former President Trump won 68.2% of the Republican vote against Nikki Haley, who received 26.6% of the vote. Trump once again struggled with college-educated voters and underperformed in many suburban areas. Still, the results mark the weakest performance Haley has had in a primary yet, and Trump's march toward the nomination looks just as assured as the incumbents. Today, we're going to take a look at some reactions to the results from the right and the left, and then my take.

First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right is encouraged by the results, stressing that Trump leads Biden in every swing state. Many say Biden's struggles in Michigan put his faults into focus. A few maintain caution, saying that Trump is not nearly as strong as the results so far make it seem. In red state, Nick Arama said the results spell big trouble for Biden and good news for Trump. Biden lost over 101,000 people to uncommitted, with the votes for Marianne Williamson and Representative Dean Phillips making it more than 140,000 not Biden. It was even worse in Dearborn, where Biden lost the city, Arama said. be noted that turnout for Democrats was lower than for Republicans, with 1.1 million people voting in the Republican primary and 762,000 in the Democratic primary. This all spells big

trouble for Joe Biden in the general election. While he might get the crossovers who voted for Haley back, if a substantial number of 140,000 plus people who wouldn't vote for him in the primary stay away, as they might in the general election, that's the game right there, Arama said. The primary seems to be in line with the RCP average, which has Trump up by 5.1 points now. All the current polls in Michigan have Trump up. If the numbers can hold and Trump takes Michigan, that also spells bad news for Biden nationwide as well. Trump is up right now in all the swing states in the polls. In PJ Media, Matt Margolis wrote about Biden's Michigan problem. The protest vote in Michigan against Biden was far more successful than its organizers had hoped.

Anti-Israel war group Listen to Michigan reportedly set out to win just 10,000 votes, roughly equivalent to the number of votes that Donald Trump won the state by in 2016, in the hopes of showing Biden that he could lose the state over his public support of Israel and its war against Hamas, Margolis said. On its face, that prospect could be enough to influence Biden's public position on the Israel-Hamas war, though even that would be risky. As PJ Media's Rick Moran noted, there are five times the number of Jewish voters in the U.S. than Muslim voters, which means there's no chance that Biden will withdraw his support from Israel. Biden has been trying desperately to please both Jewish and Muslim voters by publicly supporting

Israel while simultaneously advocating for a ceasefire, and I think he will continue to try to, Margolis wrote. Currently, polls have Donald Trump in the lead, and Tuesday's primary shows much more energy for Trump in Michigan, as more voters backed him than Biden and Uncommitted combined. If you're in the Biden White House or the Biden-Harris campaign, alarm bells are going off. In the Daily Beast, Matt Lewis said that Trump's primary dominance is an illusion. Make no mistake, Trump could lose the presidency if Haley-style Republicans stay home. In fact, there is a reason to believe this phenomenon already cost him the 2020 election, at least in Wisconsin. Now, the

good news for Trump is that the other side has problems too. Arab Democrats told Biden that continued support for Israel could likely cost him not only the state of Michigan, where there are more Arab Americans than any of the other 49 states, but the entire general election. But while Biden's challenges are widely understood, Trump supporters seem convinced he's invincible. They shouldn't be, Margolis said. Trump has chosen a style of campaigning and governing that focuses on narrowcasting and fan service directed toward his most rabid base, even at the expense of offending Reagan conservatives, suburban women, independents, etc. For nearly nine years now, Trump has gone out

of his way to create a cult-like movement of loyal fanatics rather than a broad coalition of voters. And a necessary part of this process was purging anyone who wasn't 100% pure. All right, that is it for the rightist saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left was impressed by the Listen to Michigan movement, though some doubt it will do anything to change Biden's agenda. Others leaned into the movement's message, saying Biden has to support a ceasefire now to have any hope of winning in November. A few focused on Trump, saying his consistent underperformance shows his position is extremely weak. In the Detroit Free Press, Nancy Kafer wrote that voters who were uncommitted flexed in Michigan's primary. The outcome in most states is a foregone conclusion because those states have a long

history of going red or blue. Barring unforeseen disasters, the 270 to win map predicts Democrats start the November count with 226 electoral votes, Republicans with 235, Kafer wrote. The presidential election will be decided in that handful of key states like Arizona and Georgia and Pennsylvania and, of course, Michigan, all states where former President Donald Trump is consistently polling ahead of Biden. So it's worth understanding what Michiganders told the candidates on Tuesday night. With 98% of votes counted Wednesday morning, 100,960 ballots had been cast for uncommitted, around 13% of the vote. There are a lot of ways to parse this, Kaffer said.

I believe that three things give the protest votes 13% more weight. The slim margins by which Trump won Michigan in 2016 and lost in 2020, Biden's consistently poor polling here, and the resonance of uncommitted beyond Michigan's Arab-American communities. Still, the movement's goals aren't clear. If Biden does affect a ceasefire, can the groups deliver Arab-American and anti-war votes for Biden, whom some activists have dubbed Genocide In Counterpunch, Sam Rosenthal wrote about how Michigan highlights Biden's extremely precarious presidency. Up until Tuesday's presidential primary in Michigan, President Joe Biden has met little electoral resistance as he rolls toward renomination as the for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most.

Stay in the know. CBC News. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a. Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

This is partly to do with Biden-friendly changes the Democratic National Committee made in this year's primary calendar, but also reflects an unwillingness by members of Biden's own party to attempt to question his renomination, even amidst ominous signs for Biden's re-election. That may have changed Tuesday night after a grassroots movement encouraging voters to cast an uncommitted ballot in Michigan's presidential primary startled Biden and his team. If even a significant percentage of the primary electorate that voted uncommitted in Michigan either does not vote, votes third party, or, God forbid, chooses Trump over Biden in November, then Biden will surely lose the state. After Tuesday's wake-up call, it appears probable that the Democrats have just two remaining paths to victory in 2024. The Biden administration can make a 180 degree turn, join the rest of the United Nations in opposing Israel's assault on Gaza, and try

their damnedest to broker a lasting peace there. If the administration is incapable of doing that, the Democrats must look for a different candidate for the top of the ticket. In MSNBC, James Downey wrote that Trump should be worried after his Michigan victory. The results from Tuesday's Michigan's Democratic primary, where 13% of voters chose uncommitted, might as well be a Rorschach test, Downey said. There was no ambiguity on the Republican side. Former President Donald Trump underperformed his polls yet again. On one hand, he easily defeated former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley 68.2% to 26.6%. But pre-election surveys gave Trump an even greater edge of 50 or even 60 percentage points. Michigan marks the fourth consecutive contest in which Trump's final margin has fallen short of pre-contest polling averages, Downey said. The party infrastructure is in tatters, with the Republican National Committee possibly putting itself on the hook for Trump's legal bills.

Abortion, its weakest issue in recent elections, remains a liability, as last week's Alabama Supreme Court ruling against IVF demonstrated. Add to all that the consistent underperformances at the polls and the alarm bells, for Republicans at least, go from muted to blaring. Alright, that is it for what the right and the left are saying, which brings us to my take. It has been a very bad 24 hours for Joe Biden. A brief recap. The Hamas-Israel ceasefire he said might be coming as soon as this weekend appears to not be coming at all. The Supreme Court has opted to hear Donald Trump's immunity challenge not in the next few weeks, but in late April, all but assuring the federal case regarding his actions before and during January 6th won't be resolved

before the election. A new Bloomberg Morning Consult poll shows Trump ahead in every swing state. And Mitch McConnell, one of the few Republicans left that Biden seems capable of negotiating with, is stepping down from leadership. And then there's Michigan. Much of the discussion about the results from Tuesday focus on the uncommitted vote, and rightfully so. 100,000 people casting protest votes in a primary election is a big deal, especially in a state where the margins have been so thin for so many elections. As I've said in the past, Muslim and Arab leaders in Michigan are punching way above their weight in terms of political power, and I applaud them for it. Pulling off what they just did took significant organizing, funding, and focus, and they have made their voices heard in a way that the Biden administration cannot ignore. On the other hand, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg made the argument that the uncommitted vote in Michigan was not quite as big a deal as people are making it out

to be. He described it as a very modest 13%, just two points higher than Uncommitted got against Obama in 2012, and argued this, quote, Let's review some data. 100,000 people voted Uncommitted in Michigan last night. About 100,000 Arab Americans voted for Biden in Michigan in 2020. Let's assume that 50,000 of those people stay home this November. That's a little less than 1% of the total vote this fall. Can we make it up other places? Can we work really hard to get numbers down? Yes and yes. I characterize what's happening right now as

more of a challenge to Biden than a threat, but we have work to do, end quote. I think that is a fair and level-headed perspective for a Democratic strategist to have, but I also think that there is a very good chance this race comes down to 20,000 or 30,000 votes. And when I listen to some of the voters behind the uncommitted push, I do not hear voters that are going to simply fall in line come November if things keep going the way they are. What should be far more concerning for Biden, though, is his polling. He hasn't led a Michigan poll since last November, and the latest Morning Consult poll has him down by 2%. This is the threat. Consistently poor polling that hasn't really moved, despite the changes to the economy and new political realities like the war in Gaza or the immigration crisis on the

southern border. In other words, there's a subset of Michigan voters that look fixed against him. But, like James Downey said under what the left is saying, Michigan was kind of a Rorschach test where the Republican challenger didn't look great either. Trump once again showed weakness in the suburbs with women and with college-educated voters. This is now a consistent theme of his primary run and, of course, how Republicans have been doing more broadly. I think it's fair to say Trump is winning the race right now based on the horse race polling, but come November, these are the people Trump will need to win, and right now he doesn't have them. The upshot is that the warning signs you're hearing are blaring out for both candidates, not just in Michigan but across the country.

This won't come as breaking news, but this election will come down to who can pull out narrow victories in the country's critical seven swing states. Right now, neither candidate seems to be allaying the concerns of the undecided voters. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from Jim in Rogers, Arkansas. Jim said, there's also some recent chatter about Nikki Haley being nominated by No Labels. I'd love to read your team's thoughts on that option. I believe they're enough Never Trump and Joe's two old voters out there to make this upcoming race very interesting. Your thoughts? Okay, I think you can forget about it,

basically. Nikki Haley has reportedly been nominated by the No Labels organization for their unity ticket already, and she's reportedly declined already. You don't have to take their word for it either. Take Haley's. She said, I'm a Republican. You go on a No Labels ticket. What does that mean? A Democrat vice president. That's not who I am. I'm a conservative. I've always been a hardcore Republican, Haley told Utah's Deseret News. That was in an interview ahead of the state's primary on Super Tuesday, so pretty recently. Getting a major Republican onto their unity ticket has also been a little tricky for No Labels, since many states have quote-unquote sore loser laws that prevent candidates who run in a party's

primary from declaring in the general election as an independent or a third-party candidate. No Labels is also having a difficult time finding a Democrat after retiring West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin ultimately rebuffed the invitation. What other Democrat do you think who values their political future would run against Biden for an organization that is drawing the ire and suspicion of the Democratic Party? In case you didn't know about that, Democratic groups are trying to find out who the major donors to No Labels are since they believe the group could lead to another Donald Trump presidency. Never Trump Republicans agree, and John Hendrickson recently quoted the Lincoln Project Republicans as calling the organization stupid and calamitous, saying anyone involved should be publicly shamed to society's utmost ability to do so. In his piece

in The Atlantic, Hendrickson described the group as a political organization that didn't want to be political and whose members were in it to win it but also didn't care about winning. To be frank, the article confirmed some of my priors about No Labels. I've said in response to another question that while I support independent runs and multiple parties, I couldn't comment on no labels as a group because I just have no idea what they stand for other than supporting bipartisanship. And since they still don't have a presidential candidate for this race, it leads me to believe that they don't know either. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under the radar section. The seventh case of measles linked to an outbreak at a Florida elementary school has been confirmed

by health officials. The outbreak is occurring at Manatee Bay Elementary in Weston, about 20 miles west of Fort Lauderdale. An initial case was confirmed earlier this month in a third grader with no travel history. Broward County now has nine confirmed measles cases. The disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, meaning it is no longer present in the country. But a dip in childhood vaccines as well as travelers bringing measles into the U.S. has resulted in some outbreaks. ABC News has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is the numbers section. The number of uncommitted votes in the Democratic primary in Michigan in 2012 was 20,833, the last time that the election featured an incumbent. That was 10.7% of the vote. That same year, Barack Obama's margin of victory

in Michigan was 449,238, 9.5 points ahead of Mitt Romney. The number of uncommitted votes in the Democratic primary in Michigan this year is 101,436. That's 13.2% of the vote. Joe Biden's margin of victory in Michigan in 2020 was 154,188, about 2.8 points ahead of Donald Trump. The number of percentage points between Donald Trump's expected vote share, the last Michigan poll, and the total vote share he received was 11.4. The number of days until the next critical swing state primary in North Carolina on Super Tuesday is five. Donald Trump's lead over Joe Biden in North Carolina, according to a polling average by Real Clear Politics, was 5.7 percent. All right. And last but not least, our have a nice day section. The Dotonbori River that runs through the densely populated entertainment district in Osaka, Japan, was so contaminated with sludge in the 1980s that it barely contained any oxygen. Now, this urban waterway has been found to host a robust population of one of the country's most

beloved fish, the Japanese eel. Last year, the Mainichi, the oldest English paper in Japan, partnered with the Research Institute of Environment, Agriculture, and Fisheries in the Osaka Prefecture to conduct a study on the eel population in the Dotonbori River. The team not only caught 11 individuals, the first ever caught under scientific observation, but confirmed that crabs and other creatures the eels feed on live in the river, making it a full-fledged ecosystem. The Mainichi has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast.

A quick heads up, keep an eye out. We might be back here tomorrow afternoon with something a little different. And if not, you'll definitely hear from us on Sunday. That's all I'm gonna say for now. We'll see you then. Have a good one. Peace.

Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Matt Galenovikova, who created our podcast logo music for the podcast was produced by diet 75. For more from tackle, check out our website at www.tangle.com. We'll see you next time. Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.

Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.