On Tuesday in the Michigan primary we had a protest vote that was nominally about forcing President Biden either to demand or actually force a permanent ceasefire in the ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip. I’ve written a lot about the pros and cons of this both on the ground in Israel-Palestine and within U.S. domestic politics. That dynamic however shouldn’t obscure a greater and more immediate reality, which is that even on its own terms, the current Israeli operation in Gaza has largely reached a point of diminishing returns. It is Israel which desperately needs the U.S. to put an end to it.
This isn’t to say that there are not still legitimate military goals Israel has. The Hamas leadership is still holed up in Rafah. The hostages, imprisoned for four months, are still held captive there. Hamas as a military force is clobbered but not yet broken. But as is always the case, military action is a tool to accomplish political ends. Military action which makes sense on its own terms can be revealed as folly when viewed through a broader and more consequential political prism. Tom Friedman covered a lot of this in his most recent column from a couple days ago.
A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh talk about Mitch McConnell’s big announcement and the primaries in South Carolina and Michigan.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Mitch McConnell is one of those perhaps historic figures for whom the greatness of his skill and impact are matched only in inverse by the malignity of his impact on our politics. To put it more brashly, McConnell was great at doing political evil. There is now a kind of rearguard effort to remake McConnell as an institutionalist, a last vestige of the pre-Trumpian GOP. And on that last point, being a vestige, there’s some truth. On being an institutionalist, not at all.
Mitch McConnell’s great legacy is the thorough institutionalization of minority rule in U.S. politics, especially at the federal level. The first and most obvious part of that is that McConnell, more than anyone else, is the man who broke the United States Senate, largely by domesticating the filibuster. No more a wild bull kept out in the stockade for ugly moments but now living within the household, almost a family member, though no less dangerous and wild.
Admittedly it was without those delicious atmospherics. But the substance was pretty close. Donald Trump now owes the state of New York $454 million. To appeal the verdict and to pause the state’s efforts to collect the judgment during that appeal, Trump has to post a $454 million bond. Today Trump’s lawyers went into court and asked the judge to accept a $100 million bond in lieu of the $454 million. They said that $100 million was as much as Trump could come up with. If the judge rejected the plea, “properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances.” In other words, Trump would have to sell off property at fire-sale prices and suffer harm that could not be undone if he gets the judgment thrown out on appeal.
Here’s a good HuffPost piece from TPM alum Igor Bobic. They went to what we might call “IVF Sad” Republicans and asked them about passing a federal law to protect IVF from extremists like those on the Alabama Supreme Court. “IVF Sad” Republicans are Republicans who are discomfited by having to ban IVF or at least don’t want to get caught supporting banning IVF but also have to admit that they agree with the judge who banned it.
Marco Rubio, a senator who is an emerging leader in the movement says: “Unfortunately, you have to create multiple embryos [with IVF], and some of those are not used, then you’re now in a quandary.”
This doesn’t significantly change the picture from what I noted before. But something I at least hadn’t figured on is showing up in the numbers. There’s a significant difference between the breakdown of the primary day and the early/mail vote. The gist is that the primary day vote is significantly better for “uncommitted” and the early/mail vote better for Biden. The net effect of this is that Biden seems to be adding to his margins now since the primary day vote was in most cases getting counted first. So for instance, Dearborn (which is the heart of the state’s Arab-American community) had been like 75% for uncommitted. But now it’s at roughly 55% to 41% as the early votes get counted.
The actual vote totals and percentages are coming into focus. So there’s a lot of pivoting to what they mean. As of this moment President Biden has about 80% of the vote and uncommitted has 14%. That’s been pretty consistent for a while. But there are major differences by county and towns and cities here. So the results might be bouncier than normal as more votes come in. I noted one numbers guy I follow closely who pointed to 17% as a threshold based on historical comparisons for “uncommitted.” As the results have come in there’s been a lot of shifting among “uncommitted” supporters from percentages to raw vote totals. The raw numbers are high. But overall turnout is really high too. So you can kind of play this either way you want. Raw votes go up with turnout. That’s elementary. Percentages are the key metric. Or you can say that raw votes matter since raw votes will be the margin in the general. The truth is that you simply can’t make linear comparisons like that.
8:37 p.m.: We’re still seeing just the first results out of Michigan. Too early to draw any real conclusions. But some benchmarks are helpful. In 2012, 2016 and 2020, “uncommitted” got around 20,000 votes. In 2012 that was 11% of the votes. That’s a helpful benchmark since that was the last time an incumbent Democratic President was on the ballot.
One of the numbers crunchers I follow points to 17% for uncommitted as a threshold below which you could say the Gaza/uncommitted push has failed vs over that and it has some success. The best hints I’m seeing have it right about there and maybe a point or two higher. So modest success but some success. But again, that’s tentative so far. It’s difficult to model this since there aren’t obvious baselines from earlier elections.
Here are a few thoughts on the Michigan primary tonight, in which both parties’ returns will be closely watched but especially the Democrats’. It will be the first clear electoral test of the degree of dissatisfaction with President Biden over the Israel/Hamas war, especially in the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are a couple movements trying to participate in the backlash against the President. There’s an “Abandon Biden” group which wants to do what it says, which is get as many people as possible to refuse to vote for President Biden in the November election. The consequences of that decision be damned.
The main focus tonight will be on those pushing for an “uncommitted” vote. The key thing to know is that this group very specifically does not have the same professed goal. “Uncommitted” in this case is best understood as providing a safe harbor of sorts for Democrats who want to signal outrage or opposition without refusing Biden support in the November election.
Perhaps Some Clarity After Today: Two notable hearings scheduled for today in the various prosecutions of Donald Trump.
The more significant of the two comes in the Mar-a-Lago case, where U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is set to consider the trial date and hear other pre-trial matters. Trump himself is expected to attend the hearing at the courthouse in Ft. Pierce, Florida, at 10 a.m. ET.
The Georgia RICO Sideshow: The Fani Willis romance that has bogged down the Georgia RICO case comes to a semi-conclusion today with final arguments scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on the motion to disqualify her from the case.
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