The Michigan Primary Shows Biden’s Coalition Continues to Fall Apart

The seemingly uneventful Michigan primary on Tuesday night spat out more bad news for the current incompetent Biden Administration.

While the incumbent predictably won a virtually unopposed primary, the surprisingly high number of people who voted in protest of their dislike of Joe Biden’s policies was much higher than expected. This result confirms a political trend that we have been seeing over the last year. Namely, this administration is losing support with younger voters – a key part of his 2020 coalition, as well as that of Obama’s two winning presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

While Michigan does have a large Arab population who oppose the current administration’s support for Israel, that fact does not explain the over 100,000 voters in the democratic primary who voted uncommitted. Michigan’s youth turnout in 2022 was the highest in the nation, and most these voters turned out for Democrats. Even the New York times sounded the alarm after the dismal support Biden received from younger voters in the Michigan primary, and the paper pointed out that the overwhelming majority of younger voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the current conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas. A January poll commissioned by the Detroit News also found that just 15.6% of voters between the ages of 19 and 30 had a favorable view of the current president. A poll also showed that nearly 30% of the people who voted uncommitted in Michigan were younger Democrats.

This data comes on the back of warning signs for the current Administration that young voters have been growing increasingly disillusioned with him for some time. A nationwide January poll conducted by the USA Today showed that Donald Trump is leading with younger voters over Biden 37-33%.

The administration seems to be wary of the implications of its weakness with younger voters. Recently, Biden has made efforts at appealing to younger voters with more absurd recent efforts to combat what he views as climate change, with the administration recently finalizing efforts to create a national framework to further limit emissions of motor vehicles this past December. Also, Biden promised a fresh round of student debt relief.

Nevertheless, with younger voters bleeding away from Biden, the Democrats’ Obama coalition is fraying.

Here are the numbers. According to the Pew research center Generation Z and millennial voters favored Biden over Trump in 2020 by 20 points. Generation Z voters, who were 23 or younger in 2020, also constituted nearly 8% of the electorate in that election cycle. Younger voters have always leaned left in America, but the higher turnout numbers in this demographic in 2020 and 2022 were a new electoral phenomenon. The fact that Biden is bleeding support in this core demographic support in Michigan, the state that had by far the highest youth turnout in the 2022 elections, is very important. Trump should benefit from Biden losing support with younger voters in 2 distinct ways. First, as the USA Today poll showed, the Republican presumptive nominee has gained support, and second, many younger voters who disapprove of Biden may stay home even if they don’t vote for Trump.

President Trump has also made an increasingly strong push to court younger voters as well, and his recent appearance in Philadelphia at a shoe convention geared towards a younger crowd went over well. Jared Kushner did not do a good job running the former president’s campaign in 2020, and the Trump campaign seems much better organized this time around. Trump also travels and campaigns far more than Biden, who seems more feeble by the day. The former president will likely continue to push hard to get younger voters as the polls show his current strategy is paying dividends.