Michigan
Biden and Trump will face tests in Michigan's primaries that could inform a November rematch
WASHINGTON (AP) — While Joe Biden and Donald Trump are marching toward their respective presidential nominations, Michigan’s primary on Tuesday could reveal significant political perils for both of them.
Trump, despite his undoubted dominance of the Republican contests this year, is facing a bloc of stubbornly persistent GOP voters who favor his lone remaining rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and who are skeptical at best about the former president’s prospects in a rematch against Biden.
As for the incumbent president, Biden is confronting perhaps his most potent electoral obstacle yet: an energized movement of disillusioned voters upset with his handling of the war in Gaza and a relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics say has been too supportive.
Those dynamics will be put to the test in Michigan, the last major primary state before Super Tuesday and a critical swing state in November’s general election. Even if they post dominant victories as expected on Tuesday, both campaigns will be looking at the margins for signs of weakness in a state that went for Biden by just 3 percentage points last time.
Biden said in a local Michigan radio interview Monday that it would be “one of the five states” that would determine the winner in November.
Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation, and more than 310,000 residents are of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Nearly half of Dearborn’s roughly 110,000 residents claim Arab ancestry.
It has become the epicenter of Democratic discontent with the White House’s actions in the Israel-Hamas war, now nearly five months old, following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack and kidnapping of more than 200 hostages. Israel has bombarded much of Gaza in response, killing nearly 30,000 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to Palestinian figures.
Democrats angry that Biden has supported Israel’s offensive and resisted calls for a ceasefire are rallying voters on Tuesday to instead select “uncommitted.”
The “uncommitted” effort, which began in earnest just a few weeks ago, has been backed by officials such as Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress, and former Rep. Andy Levin, who lost a Democratic primary two years ago after pro-Israel groups spent more than $4 million to defeat him.
Abbas Alawieh, spokesperson for the Listen to Michigan campaign that has been rallying for the “uncommitted” campaign, said the effort is a “way for us to vote for a ceasefire, a way for us to vote for peace and a way for us to vote against war.”
Trump won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and then lost the state four years later by nearly 154,000 votes to Biden. Alawieh said the “uncommitted” effort wants to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trump’s margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential that bloc can be.
“The situation in Gaza is top of mind for a lot of people here,” Alawieh said. “President Biden is failing to provide voters for whom the war crimes that are being inflicted by our U.S. taxpayer dollars – he’s failing to provide them with something to vote for.”
Our Revolution, the organizing group once tied to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has also urged progressive voters to choose “uncommitted” on Tuesday, saying it would send a message to Biden to “change course NOW on Gaza or else risk losing Michigan to Trump in November.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a Biden backer who held several meetings and listening sessions in Michigan late last week, said he told community members that, despite his disagreements over the war, he would nonetheless support Biden because he represents a much better chance of peace in the Middle East than Trump.
“I also said that I admire those who are using their ballot in a quintessentially American way to bring about a change in policy,” Khanna said Monday, adding that Biden supporters need to proactively engage with the uncommitted voters to try and “earn back their trust.”
“The worst thing we can do is try to shame them or try to downplay their efforts,” he said.
Trump has drawn enthusiastic crowds at most of his rallies, including a Feb. 17 rally outside Detroit drawing more than 2,000 people who packed into a frigid airplane hangar.
But data from AP VoteCast, a series of surveys of Republican voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, reveals that his core voters so far are overwhelmingly white, mostly older than 50 and generally without a college degree. He will likely have to appeal to a far more diverse group of voters in November. And he has underperformed his statewide results in suburban areas that are critical in states like Michigan.
Several of Trump’s favored picks in Michigan’s 2022 midterm contests lost their campaigns, further underscoring his loss of political influence in the state. Meanwhile, the state GOP has been riven with divisions among various pro-Trump factions, potentially weakening its power at a time when Michigan Republicans are trying to lay the groundwork to defeat Biden this fall.
Both Biden and Trump have so far dominated their respective primary bids. Biden has sailed to wins in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire, with the latter victory coming in through a write-in campaign. Trump has swept all the early state contests and his team is hoping to lock up the delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination by mid-March.
Nonetheless, an undeterred Haley has promised to continue her longshot presidential primary campaign through at least Super Tuesday on March 5, when 15 states and one territory hold their nominating contests.
As Haley stumped across Michigan on Sunday and Monday, voters showing up to her events expressed enthusiasm for her in Tuesday’s primary — even though, given her losses in the year’s first four states, it seemed increasingly likely she wouldn’t win the nomination.
“She seems honorable,” said Rita Lazdins, a retired microbiologist from Grand Haven, Michigan, who in an interview Monday refused to say Trump’s name. “Honorable is not what that other person is. I hate to say that, but it’s so true.”
___
Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.
Michigan
FCS All-American WR to visit Michigan State this week
Michigan State football is identifying targets across the board to being in for visits as the transfer portal window moves along. The latest visit to go public comes from a wide receiver at the FCS level.
Evan James, a Furman transfer, will be taking a visit to East Lansing starting on Jan. 5. A 5-foot-11, 170 pound receiver from Apopka, Florida, James had a breakout season for the Paladins. In 2025 he caught 65 passes for 796 yards and seven touchdowns. He also had seven carries for 72 yards and a touchdown, doing all of this as a true freshman, earning FCS Freshman All-American honors.
After doing this all as a freshman, he will bring three years of eligibility with him to the next school of his choosing. Aside from Michigan State, it is rumored that Boston College and Cincinnati will also be in contention.
Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Cory Linsner on X @Rex_Linzy
Michigan
More than 50,000 without power across Michigan before strong storm begins
Even before high winds have kicked in from a strong incoming storm system, more than 50,000 homes and businesses were without power across Michigan.
The bulk of these outages are in Mid-Michigan. Clare County had the largest outage tally, with more than 16,000. Mecosta County had more than 7, 500 without power, and Isabella County had more than 6,000 out.
A couple counties in the very western Upper Peninsula were also reporting outages.
These outage numbers are expected to increase by early Monday, as high winds come in as part of this storm system. Sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph are expected, but wind gusts could top 60 mph in some areas.
The issue with the Mid-Michigan outages is rooted in Friday’s ice accumulation. Utility officials said there has been about a half-inch of ice accumulation on trees and power lines in that area through the weekend. Temperatures this weekend did not get warm enough to melt the ice, as they did in other areas. Heavy rain on Sunday froze again quickly, causing a heavier ice load and more outages.
Consumers Energy has said they have crews mobilized to work on outages as they arise with this storm.
To see the latest update on this storm coverage, follow our headlines on the MLive Weather page.
Michigan
Michigan AD Warde Manuel says firing Sherrone Moore was easy decision
Kyle Whittingham says Bo Schembechler, Michigan hooked him on football
New Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham said on Sunday, Dec. 28, that he watched Bo Schembechler’s Michigan team play Ohio State when he was 7 years old.
ORLANDO, FL — Athletic director Warde Manuel introduced Kyle Whittingham as Michigan football’s 22nd head coach in program history on the second story of the Hyatt Regency Hotel on International Drive in Orlando on Sunday, Dec. 28
It was an unusual setting for such a moment, but then again this has been an unusual month for the Wolverines. They began a search for their new coach shortly after Dec. 10 – the day Sherrone Moore was fired after U-M was presented with “credible evidence” of an inappropriate relationship with a staffer.
Manuel discussed the matter – which culminated with an arrest and multiple charges – for the first time Sunday. He called it difficult personally, but something that he had no hesitation about doing professionally.
“Listen man, it’s hard,” Manuel said. “It’s hard when you have a colleague that is going through something personally, professionally, in his family and [knowing the] people and impact that it has on so many staff, student-athletes and the Michigan community.
“Personally, I’ve known him for seven or eight years, so it was difficult to see him, as a person, go through what he went through. But professionally, it was an easy decision to make because of the expectations that we have for everyone on our side.”
Moore was arrested hours after he was fired from U-M for allegedly breaking into the staffer’s home and threatening to kill himself, according to a police report.
While it was by far the most dramatic scene, in the eyes of many, it was simply the latest negative headline for the Michigan athletic department.
As a result, Michigan brought in outside law firm Jenner & Block to conduct a review into Moore’s situation and the athletic department at large. Manuel told reporters it was in part his idea – something he brought up to interim president Domenico Grasso as an effort to understand how everybody can improve.
“There’s not much I can say. There’s an investigation continuing into coach Moore, there’s a cultural evaluation around the department and so we will we obviously know some facts,” Manuel said. “There’s some things that are out there that I can’t comment on, that are untrue, and there may be some things that they find, but that’s why we do an investigation, and I’m very open to that. Wanted the cultural analysis to be done to help us get better.
“I asked the President to help with a cultural analysis and have somebody come in. So yes, I am very supportive of that, because as a leader, I face reality. There are things that happen. I don’t step away from it. Never have, never will. So we need to get better, and that’s part of is getting somebody to come in and to assess.”
Whittingham, for his part, was not deterred by the optics of instability in Ann Arbor. U-M is likely weeks away from naming a new president, and Manuel’s job security has also been called into question.
Whittingham said he didn’t know the details, but that he believes that his job is to focus on what goes on in Schembechler Hall and allow others to figure out what’s next.
“The answer is no, I didn’t have any hesitation,” he said when asked whether he thought twice about taking the job. “There are some issues, missteps that are being taken care of, but the key is the court players here are rock solid. … I’ve got no doubt everything is going to be handled properly.
“I’m not close enough or knowledgeable enough and privy enough to exactly what’s going on in the details, but I’ve got full confidence that we’ll come out of this just fine. … What I’m concerned with is the players.”
How the hire went down
Manuel has been criticized for not formally interviewing any other candidates before hiring Moore. This time, the initial list was “extensive” before Michigan had more official conversations about 6-8 true potential fits.
Michigan had initial interest in Whittingham and it didn’t take long before the Wolverines learned the feeling was mutual. Whittingham explained how the timing was “uncanny” with how things lined up. He had mulled 2024 being his last season in Salt Lake City but after going 5-7 and cycling through a host of quarterbacks, he didn’t want to go out that way, nor did he want to leave his impending successor, Morgan Scalley, in a hole.
He announced his decision to step down from the Utes on Dec. 12; days later people in his circle and members involved with the search for the Wolverines began contact.
Whittingham wasn’t going to leave for just anywhere, but as a U-M fan from afar since the first football game he turned on the TV at age 7, he had to hear the Wolverines out.
He liked what he heard. The more Manuel heard, the more he liked as well. It’s a sentiment he believes is echoed by the U-M faithful – he said he has already received “hundreds” of text messages from former players, coaches and those involved with the university praising the hire.
“He was a great person for Michigan for us to bring in and continue to drive success,” Manuel said. “With his character, with his integrity – the things that people [around him] talked about were high on my list of characteristics that I wanted from the [next] coach.”
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
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