The Defection Math Is Hard for Some

Despite the media’s focus on Joe Biden’s challenges, the real question is which candidate is actually seeing a bigger defection.

Photo courtesy of AP

If you believe the headlines, the progressive left is causing Joe Biden to lose Michigan, and without Michigan, there goes the whole election.

Okay, deep breath.

There is a lot of misinformation, and some pretty obviously wrong math, driving panic on the left. And the media is lapping it up for clicks and engagement. And while we should take seriously the threat of Democratic defections, we shouldn’t frame the question as something faced only by the Democrats.

This is a two-person race. So the better question isn’t how much support Biden might lose, but rather which candidate, in the face of loss of certain demographic support, faces the bigger challenge? 

The headlines tell us that it is Joe Biden, but the numbers tell us that it is Donald Trump. 

Let’s walk through what’s going on, and let’s clear up some of the confusion that the media is causing, by this point we can safely say intentionally.

The uncommitted vote

Pro-Palestinian Democrats in Michigan began organizing a protest vote around three weeks ago, urging supporters to vote “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s primary instead of for Biden. 

I’m going to take a fairly controversial position here and say that I am totally okay with them doing this. I would rather know the extent of unhappiness and defection this early in the electoral process, because it gives us data and a chance to course correct.

That course correction is actually a key distinction between what Biden can do between now and November and what Trump is likely incapable of doing because of the kind of person Trump is and the extremists who are advising him.

The protest organizers have a legitimate grievance. The U.S. has backed Israel unconditionally for decades, and currently the Israeli government is led by a corrupt authoritarian who is waging a war that has killed thousands of innocents, mostly children. We all want peace, and many understandably argue that a ceasefire is the best way to achieve it and that the killing must stop now. Indeed, the U.S. is pressing for a temporary ceasefire that it hopes will become permanent.

The protest organizers were also rather clever in setting expectations. Their initial goal was to turn out 10,000 “uncommitted” votes in Michigan—a number equal to the votes in 2016 that Hillary Clinton lost by. This, they believed, would send a strong message and force the White House not just to listen to their concerns but to act more forcefully to stop the war.

By the time the votes were counted, they turned out 10 times that number of uncommitted voters, so the papers ran with the story that the protestors had far exceeded expectation—often without diving into whether notching a 13.3 percent uncommitted vote was in fact a historic achievement.

It turns out, it isn’t as strong a showing when viewed in a historical context. In 2012, incumbent president Barack Obama saw around a 10.7 percent “uncommitted” vote, less than three points fewer than Biden saw on Tuesday. Obama went on to beat Mitt Romney in the state 54-45. 

In 2008, when only Hillary Clinton was on the ballot, she saw around 40 percent of voters choose “uncommitted” or “undecided”—some 238,000 votes—because they supported unlisted candidates such as Obama and Edwards.

The uncommitted vote over Gaza is a signal for Biden to pay attention to and address, but it is not a catastrophe. The Biden campaign should and does understand that it has to try to win back as many of these voters as it can by, for example, working hard for a lasting peace in Gaza and disavowing support for Prime Minister Netanyahu without alienating pro-Israel Democrats—a tall order and difficult line to walk. 

But the number of uncommitted voters even at 100K does not lead automatically to the conclusion that Biden will lose Michigan. 

And that’s because Trump’s numbers are even more concerning.

Comparing apples to the orange guy

Predictably, the major media outlets focused on the showing from the Biden opposition while glossing over an even bigger “protest” vote against Donald Trump.

One news alert from the New York Times warned, “President Biden won the state’s Democratic primary election but faced opposition over the Gaza policy, and Donald Trump easily beat Nikki Haley.”

Thanks for giving Trump yet another pass, NYT.

But the actual numbers tell a different story. Biden captured 81% of the Democratic primary vote, with some 13% voting “uncommitted.” His listed opponents received just 5.7% combined.

Trump by contrast got just 68% of the Republican primary vote with Haley getting over 26%. That’s twice the percent of the Democratic uncommitted vote, and more than two-and-a-half times the sheer number of uncommitted Democratic primary voters.

Commentators often like to play this trick of reminding people that Hillary Clinton lost by only 10,000 votes in 2016. What if ten times that number of people refuse to vote for Biden in November? Doesn’t that mean Biden is doomed?

Another deep breath. 

In yesterday’s Democratic primary, there were 100,000 uncommitted voters, sure. But in the Republican primary, there were a quarter million Nikki Haley voters. And we know from exit polling in other states that nearly 60 percent of those voters have stated that they are not going to vote for Trump.

Biden will work to win many of the uncommitted Democratic voters back. But honestly, how many can Trump get back? A quarter million Republicans in Michigan turned out to cast protest votes against Trump, most of them saying “We do not want you.” Meanwhile, a far lower number of Democrats turned out to say to Biden, “We want you to listen and to change your policy because you’re breaking our hearts.” 

And unlike Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden actually beat Donald Trump in Michigan by 157,000 votes in 2020. That means he’s got an even bigger buffer than in 2016. Since then, both candidates have suffered some loss of support, but Trump has suffered far greater defections. And in those four years, hundreds of thousands of young voters who skew strongly Democratic have entered the electorate, while hundreds of thousands of older voters who skew Republican have, shall we say, departed it. 

In 2022, Democrats won statewide victories in Michigan and achieved a trifecta of government. They are organized and have pushed forward a popular agenda that helps working families and strengthens unions while addressing gun violence, education and climate change. Meanwhile by 2024 the Republican party in Michigan had gone broke and now is in such disarray that there are actually two GOP camps, each claiming to be the legitimate party leadership.

So which presidential candidate would you rather be in Michigan?

Polls, schmolls

One last point for today. For the fourth time in a row, Trump has underperformed in polling averages in a key primary state. The 538 polling average had Trump defeating Haley by 57 points. He won the state by less than 42. That’s a big polling miss of 15 percent. In Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the polling averages were off by 7-8 percent.

And while it’s true that primary polling misses average around 8 percent—a fact that should give us all pause when citing polls—the fact that all the primary polls have overestimated Trump’s strength against Haley is noteworthy. It means we should take any battleground or national polls with more than a few grains of salt.

Next week is Super Tuesday, and that will tell us more about what actual enthusiastic primary voters think all across the nation. As results come in, keep this in mind: Both candidates will need to work hard to keep their parties’ support. But only one of those candidates is an adjudged rapist and business fraud facing 91 criminal counts and upcoming state and federal trials, judgments in the hundreds of millions against him, and crushing legal bills that will sap the coffers of his party.

The other guy is three years older, but he beat the criminal the last time around, and he enjoys eating ice cream while presiding over the strongest economy in the G7 and shoring up our international alliances instead of inviting Russia to attack us.

I continue to like our odds here.