With the South Carolina Republican primary in the rearview mirror, the race for the Democratic and GOP presidential nominations now heads to the first battleground state in November’s election: Michigan.
The Wolverine State is a crucial one for both parties. Narrowly winning the reliably blue state helped give Donald Trump the presidency in 2016, the first Republican to do so since 1988, but Joe Biden won it back in 2020 by more than 150,000 votes.
While both Biden and Trump lead in recent polling, both frontrunners face major questions in Michigan’s primary, which is the last before Super Tuesday on March 5, when more than a dozen states — accounting for roughly a third of all delegates to the nominating conventions — are up for grabs.
For Trump, it will be another test of the strength of his last remaining challenger, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — and if a power struggle between competing factions of the state’s Republican Party will have any impact.
On the other side of the spectrum, Biden faces a challenge not from a particular candidate — though his last remaining challenger for the Democratic nomination, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips will be on the ballot — but from a push by progressive activists to get voters to pick “uncommitted” as a form of protest to push the incumbent to back a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
As of Monday, more than 1 million people have already voted in the primary — 927,000 by mail and 78,000 in person early — a 13% higher pre-Election Day turnout than the state saw in 2020, according to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Activists in Michigan earlier this month launched Listen to Michigan, an effort aiming to show Biden that his administration must listen to the state's voters and change his policy on the war in Gaza.
The organization has set a goal of getting roughly 10,000 voters to vote "uncommitted," a nod to the margin by which Trump won the state over Hillary Clinton in 2016
"Trump only won Michigan in 2016 by about 10,000 votes. Uncommitted Michigan Democrats opposed to Biden’s policy in Gaza can demonstrate that we hold his margin of victory for re-election," a message on the group's website reads.
“This is not an anti-Biden campaign,” Layla Elabed, the campaign's organizer and the sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, told CNN. “It’s a humanitarian vote. It’s a protest vote. It is a vote that tells Biden and his administration that we believe in saving lives.”
The movement has won the backing of a number of officials, including Tlaib, former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, Ohio state senator Nina Turner and former Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke.
"You all know Trump is an existential threat to our democracy, and President Biden is risking another Trump term over his support for the most right-wing government, most extremist government in the history of Israel," Tlaib said over the weekend at a rally in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit with a significant Arab American population.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a staunch Biden surrogate, said that she's "not sure what we're going to see on Tuesday," but sought to emphasize that "it's important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that's not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term."
"Michigan has been so fortunate to be the home of a robust Arab, Muslim, Palestinian community and a robust Jewish community," Whitmer said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "We have lived in harmony as neighbors for decades, and there's a lot of pain all across all of these communities because of what's happening halfway around the world."
"A second Trump term would be devastating, not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy," she later added. "This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban ... I am encouraging people to cast an affirmative vote for President Biden. I understand the pain that people are feeling, and I will continue to work to build bridges with folks in all of these communities, because they're all important to me, they're all important to Michigan, and I know they're all important to President Biden as well.
It should be noted that in the 2020 presidential primaries, "uncommitted" scored more than 19,000 (1.2%) votes on the Democratic side and over 32,000 (4.8%) on the Republican side. In 2016, more than 21,000 (1.79%) "uncommitted" votes were cast in the Democratic primary between Clinton and Bernie Sanders and 22,000 (1.72%) were cast in the GOP primary.
In 2012's Democratic primary, in which then-President Barack Obama was running unopposed, more than 20,000 (10%) "uncommitted" votes were cast; he won the state over Mitt Romney with 54% of the vote that November in the general election.
The major battle on the GOP side might not be between Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley -- a recent poll showed the former South Carolina governor trailing her old boss 69-20, with 11% undecided -- but between warring factions of the state Republican Party.
There are 55 delegates up for grabs for the Republican candidates. Sixteen will be awarded by the primary on Tuesday, while the remaining 39 will be awarded at a nominating convention held on Saturday. This was in part because Democrats, who control the state government after last year's midterms, moved the state's primary up, which conflicts with Republican Party rules prohibiting states -- except for traditionally early voting ones like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- from holding primary contests before March 1.
But two warring factions within the state Republican party have each pledged to hold their own convention, leading to some confusion.
Kristina Karamo, who ran for governor unsuccessfully in 2022 against Whitmer, was elected to lead the Michigan Republican Party last year, but was ousted earlier this year. She has refused to recognize her ouster and relinquish power, and will be holding a convention in Detroit on Saturday.
Former U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, the RNC-recognized chair of the Michigan GOP, will be hosting a convention in Grand Rapids on Saturday.
“If other people who believe that they may represent the Republican Party — they’re more than welcome to have a meeting wherever they want, whether they want to meet in Detroit or whether they want to meet in Manistee or Big Rapids, Michigan, they can have a meeting,” Hoekstra told NBC News. “But it won’t be a Republican convention or caucus.”
The state party is more than $600,000 in debt under Karamo's leadership. Karamo refused to refused to meet with some longtime donors or turned them off by criticizing them as insufficiently conservative or out of step with Trump.
Hoekstra, who was ambassador to the Netherlands under Trump, has pledged to restore relationships with them, but acknowledged it will be difficult to rebuild fewer than nine months a state party that, in recent presidential cycles, has operated with a budget of $20 million to $30 million.
Despite losing her home state to Trump over the weekend, Haley has pledged to forge ahead with her presidential bid.
Haley's campaign on Sunday touted a $1 million fundraising haul in the 24 hours following the South Carolina primary, which they said was entirely raised by grassroots supporters.
“Millions of Americans want a better choice in this election,” Haley spokesperson AnnMarie Graham-Barnes said in a statement. “Nikki is moving full speed ahead toward Super Tuesday, where voters will have the opportunity to vote for her promise of American strength and an end to chaos.”
But Haley is trailing Trump in the delegate count -- 110-20 as of Monday -- and Americans for Prosperity, a powerful group of conservative donors aligned with the Koch family, said it will no longer spend money on behalf of her campaign, opting instead to focus on competitive House and Senate races.
"Nikki Haley has shown us again and again that we made the right decision in supporting her candidacy and she continues to have our strong endorsement." Americans For Prosperity CEO Emily Seidel wrote in an memo obtained by POLITICO. "She has made it clear that she will continue to fight and we wholeheartedly support her in this effort. But given the challenges in the primary states ahead, we don’t believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen her path to victory. And so while we will continue to endorse her, we will focus our resources where we can make the difference."
Regardless, Haley hit the campaign trail in the Wolverine State, urging voters in Grand Rapids on Monday to pick her over the "chaos" that comes with Trump.
“Donald Trump is now turning the Republican Party into his own playpen,” she said, referencing Trump backing daughter-in-law Lara Trump to become co-chair of the RNC. “Look at what’s happening at the RNC. The idea that they would be choosing a chair and a director before a primary is over is a massive control move by Donald Trump.”
“The problem is chaos literally follows him," Haley said of Trump. "We can’t be a country in disarray in a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos -- we won’t survive.”
Haley on Monday pointed to the 40% she garnered in the South Carolina primary on Saturday as a warning sign for Trump.
“We are seeing all over the country that the Republican Party is fully divided,” she said. “If you have a candidate that can’t win 40% of the vote in the early states, if you have a candidate who can’t bring in independents, if you have a candidate that is driving people out of our party, then that is a sinking ship.”
A recent poll from WOOD TV8, Emerson College Polling and The Hill showed both Trump and Biden comfortably leading their primary field.
Biden leads the Democratic field with 75%, with 9% planning to vote "uncommitted" and 5% for Phillips. Twelve percent were undecided.
On the Republican side, 69% favored Trump, while 20% backed Haley. Eleven percent were undecided.
In a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Biden, the Republican led 46-44, well within the poll's margin of error. Biden's support increased by 3% while Trump's dropped by 1% since a similar survey last month.
The survey looked at 1,000 people between Feb. 20-24 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.