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      Michigan governor says not voting for Biden over Gaza war ‘supports second Trump term’

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      Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.“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,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “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. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.“We don’t want a country that supports war and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza … This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government,” she said in a video posted to her Twitter account. “If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted.”Tlaib’s sister, Layla Elabed, is the campaign manager for Listen to Michigan, the group that has been leading the effort to get people to vote uncommitted. The group has the support of 30 elected officials across south-east Michigan, including Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, which has a large Arab American population.“Biden must earn our vote through a dramatic change in policy,” the group says on its website. “President Biden has been a successful candidate in the past by representing a broad coalition, but right now he’s not representing the vast majority of Democrats who want a ceasefire and an end to his funding of Israel’s war in Gaza.”While Biden will easily win the Democratic primary there, Michigan is a key swing state in the November general election. Biden will need strong support of voters who are a part of his Democratic base in addition to support from more moderate voters to win.Acknowledging that reality, Biden dispatched top aides to Dearborn to meet with leaders there earlier this month. During that meeting, Jon Finer, a deputy national security adviser, acknowledged errors in how the administration had responded.“We are very well aware that we have missteps in the course of responding to this crisis since October 7,” he said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by the New York Times. “We have left a very damaging impression based on what has been a wholly inadequate public accounting for how much the president, the administration and the country values the lives of Palestinians. And that began, frankly, pretty early in the conflict.” More

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      Protesting Biden in Michigan, Gaza Supporters Warn, ‘Don’t Blame Us’ if You Lose

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      About 100 people turned out on Tuesday at the University of Michigan to urge Democrats to reject President Biden in the state’s primary election, a political gathering that illustrated both the passion and the limits of the effort to pressure him into calling for Israel to stop waging war in Gaza.The rally, held by a group called Listen to Michigan that is urging voters to cast their ballots for “Uncommitted” against Mr. Biden in next week’s primary, called for Democrats to reject the president in the primary.The speakers in Ann Arbor and a crowd made up mostly of students displayed energy, pronouncing themselves livid at Mr. Biden’s stance on Israel, but when the event began there were so few attendees that they could, and did, all stand in a circle and hold hands.Former Representative Andy Levin of Michigan, a progressive Democrat who was at the gathering, said it would be Mr. Biden’s fault if his policies toward Israel and Gaza led him to lose the general election to former President Donald J. Trump, the likely Republican nominee. Mr. Levin nodded to Michigan’s large population of Arab Americans, whose frustration with Mr. Biden along with discontent among young voters and progressives has raised questions about the president’s standing in the state, a critical presidential battleground.President Biden “needs votes from Arab Americans, from people of color, from progressive Jews and from young people,” former Representative Andy Levin said on Tuesday.Nick Hagen for The New York Times“Don’t blame us,” said Mr. Levin, who along with Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan has become one of the most prominent supporters of the Uncommitted movement. “He needs votes from Arab Americans, from people of color, from progressive Jews and from young people. He only won Michigan by 150,000 votes in 2020, so politically we have a moment where we can raise our voices.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib tells fellow Democrats: reject Biden in primary

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      The progressive US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on her fellow Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s presidential primary election – at the expense of the party’s incumbent, Joe Biden – in late February.Appearing in a video posted to X on Saturday by Listen to Michigan, a political campaign to encourage the state’s voters to vote “uncommitted” in the 27 February primary, Tlaib justified her stark display of displeasure with Biden by alluding to Israel’s military strikes on Gaza, which local authorities say have killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians since last October.Tlaib – Congress’s only Palestinian American lawmaker – also criticized the Biden White House’s support for Israel, which launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks that killed about 1,200 Israelis.Speaking in front of the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, which has one of the US’s largest populations of Arab Americans, Tlaib said: “It is important … to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local elected [officials], and passing city resolutions all throughout our country. It is also important to create a voting bloc, something that is a bullhorn to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”Tlaib added: “We don’t want a country that supports war and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza … This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government.“If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted” rather than in support of Biden, the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee for November’s presidential election.The congresswoman’s message echoed the calls of Listen to Michigan, whose campaign manager is Tlaib’s sister Layla Elabed.Speaking to Business Insider, Elabed said: “Voting uncommitted is our way of demanding change, and this is going to be our vehicle to return political power back to us.”More than 30 elected officials across south-east Michigan have already pledged to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s 27 February primary elections. Those officials include the Dearborn mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, along with city council members and state representatives.A statement released by Listen to Michigan earlier in February said, “Let us be clear: we unequivocally demand that the Biden administration immediately call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We must hold our president unaccountable and ensure that we, the American taxpayers, are no longer forced to be accomplices in a genocide that is backed and funded by the United States government.”It also said: “Therefore, we pledge to check the box for ‘uncommitted’ on our ballots in the upcoming presidential primary election. These are not empty words; they signify our steadfast commitment to justice, dignity, and the sanctity of human life, which is greater than loyalty to any candidate or party.”With the 81-year-old president facing increasing pressure over his handling of Israel’s military strikes in Gaza, as well as scrutiny over his age, Arab and Muslim Americans across multiple swing states – including Michigan – have organized campaigns under the slogan #AbandonBiden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTlaib’s latest video announcement has received mixed responses.The former Ohio Democratic state senator Nina Turner tweeted, “Arab Americans do not want their tax dollars going to kill their family members. It’s unnerving to see the liberal response to that demand. Rashida Tlaib is absolutely justified to endorse this.”Meanwhile, in response to Tlaib’s endorsement of Listen Michigan, the conservative group Republicans Against asked on X who among Democrats would run against the congresswoman ahead of her running for re-election in November.Tlaib last year was censured by the Republican-led US House over her criticisms of Israel. She responded to the censure measure by saying that she would “not be silenced” and that “Palestinian people are not disposable”. More

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      At Rally in Michigan, Trump Lashes Out at Judge Who Fined Him $355 Million

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      Former President Donald J. Trump vented about his latest legal defeat to freezing supporters at a Michigan rally on Saturday night, a day after a New York judge fined him nearly $355 million plus interest in his civil fraud case.The Republican front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination, Mr. Trump denied that he had conspired to manipulate his net worth, which he was found liable of by Justice Arthur F. Engoron in a ruling that could wipe out Mr. Trump’s entire cash stockpile.“This judge is a lunatic,” he said in his opening salvo at his rally, held inside an airport hangar in Oakland County about 30 miles from Detroit.Mr. Trump used a similar line of attack against Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, who had accused him of exaggerating his wealth in the lengthy case. Barred by the judge for three years from serving in top roles at any New York company, including portions of his own Trump Organization, Mr. Trump cast aspersions on the justice system and said he had been persecuted.Mr. Trump’s visit to Michigan overlapped with the first day of early, in-person voting in the state, which is using both a primary and a caucus-style convention to award delegates for the first time in Republican Party contests.At the rally, the Trump campaign placed large signs urging supporters to take advantage of early voting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michigan’s G.O.P. Nominating Process Appears Headed For Chaos

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      As early in-person voting began on Saturday in Michigan, a fight for control of the G.O.P. in the crucial battleground state plunged Republicans there deeper into a political maelstrom, with rival factions potentially barreling toward hosting dueling nominating conventions.As if things weren’t already confusing.In a little over a week, the state will host a traditional primary on one day, and then a caucus-style convention a few days later. Now, it seems, there could actually be two conventions, in different parts of the state, each claiming legitimacy.Former President Donald J. Trump is headed to Michigan on Saturday night, with a campaign rally in Waterford Township, about 30 miles northwest of Detroit. While he has made it clear which faction he is supporting, and so has the national party, that has done little to dissuade the Trump-styled election denier attempting to hold on to power.The feud, already being waged in state court, appears to be only gaining intensity.Pete Hoekstra, whom the Republican National Committee recognized on Wednesday as the state party’s rightful chairman after his election last month, said he was moving forward with plans to hold a statewide nominating convention on March 2 in Western Michigan.But Kristina Karamo, defying the R.N.C.’s determination that she had properly been removed as party chairwoman earlier in January and Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Hoekstra, has also indicated that she will continue hosting a convention on the same day, for the same purpose, but in Detroit.At stake at the convention will be 39 of Michigan’s 55 Republican presidential delegates. The other 16 will be decided during the state’s Feb. 27 primary, which includes at least nine days of early voting. The hybrid process, new this year, was adopted by Republicans in order to comply with R.N.C. rules after Michigan’s Democratic governor moved up the primary date.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Finds Support but Also Protests in Michigan

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      The president’s Michigan trip underscored the fresh challenges he faces this year.President Biden’s visit to Michigan yesterday had all the hallmarks of a vintage Scranton Joe event, as he talked to United Automobile Workers members about his love of cars and affinity for the labor movement.But if the appearance was a throwback to previous campaigns — and a reminder of his historical appeal to a multiracial bloc of working-class voters — the Michigan trip itself underscored the fresh challenges Biden faces this year.Michigan is home to many Arab American and Muslim voters, who were once a solid Biden constituency but are now livid about the president’s support of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.Pro-Palestinian groups protested his visit, carrying signs that called for voters to “abandon Biden.” Demonstrators chanted “Genocide Joe” and “How many kids have you killed today?” outside a campaign stop later in the day, my colleague Michael Shear reported.Some Arab American community leaders, including the mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, recently declined a meeting with Biden’s campaign manager. And a group of activists is planning to encourage Michiganders to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s primaries on Feb. 27.“If we can demonstrate our political power and discontent through as many uncommitted votes as possible in the Michigan Democratic primaries, then the hope is that Biden would feel more at risk of losing Michigan in the general election,” said Layla Elabed, the campaign manager for the effort, who is a sister of Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. She hopes that would prompt him to “shift his policy to support a cease-fire, at least” and to urge restrictions on military aid to Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Surprise as Black Democrats work with Republicans to undo electoral maps

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      A lawsuit brought by Black Democrats who partnered with Republican attorneys has undone Michigan’s first independently drawn legislative maps, in a development some other Democrats have labeled a GOP “power grab”.Republicans for decades controlled all or part of the state legislature, and developed districts that a judge in 2019 characterized as a “gerrymander of historical proportions”. Democrats in 2022 took control of the state government for the first time in over 40 years after a nonpartisan independent redistricting commission implemented more balanced maps.But a Republican-majority panel of federal district court judges appointed by a Republican circuit court judge ruled in early January that the maps diluted Black voting power and were drawn based on race, thus splitting communities that would otherwise vote in a bloc.Several Michigan Democrats who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to publicly criticize members of their party expressed dismay because a Republican judiciary now controls the redrawing process, and they fear the new maps will be more favorable to the GOP.Constituents in Detroit and elsewhere in the state will suffer if the legislature is turned back over to Republicans, some Democrats said. Michigan now has its first Black speaker of the house and more Black committee chairs than it has ever had, the maps’ supporters noted, and the speaker’s district is one of those included in the lawsuit.But former Michigan state representative Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, one of the lead plaintiffs along with a group of Black voters, told the Guardian her colleagues’ arguments were “ludicrous”. The new maps carved up Detroit into more districts than before, and that destroyed Detroit’s voting bloc, she added.The lawsuit encompasses 13 senate and house districts in and around Detroit, a city that is around 85% Black. Of those, eight districts are currently represented by Black representatives or senators.“We don’t want a majority on the backs of Black people who have no voice in selecting their own representation,” she said. “If the party is suggesting that the only way they can have a majority is by selling Black people up the river, then hell no. It’s not fair.”Typically, Republicans in other states argue on the opposite side of the Voting Rights Act and 14th amendment violations, which Democrats say is evidence the party is disingenuous and capitalizing on Democratic divisions to try to destroy the maps.Michigan Democratic party chair Lavora Barnes did not respond to specific questions from the Guardian, but in a statement said she is “confident that Democrats will be able to hold the majority in the House and maintain our Democratic trifecta that has continually delivered for Michiganders”.Previously, the party in charge of the legislature drew the maps every 10 years. That changed with the 2018 passage of a citizen initiative for an independent nonpartisan redistricting commission. The commission’s new lines went into effect this year, giving Democrats a much fairer shot at control.Michigan was one of a handful of swing states to come under full Democratic control in 2022 as the undoing of Roe V Wade galvanized voters, but their majority in both chambers is razor thin. The state’s congressional districts are not affected by the lawsuit, though a second suit is possible.Among the plaintiff’s lead attorneys is John Bursch, a former state solicitor general under GOP former attorney general Bill Schuette who has represented conservatives in anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion causes.In what observers say is an unprecedented move, the federal court appointed a special master to draw new maps at the same time as the commission, reasoning that the commission was beset by infighting and incapable of redrawing legislative lines in time for the 2024 elections.With the close proximity of the 2024 primaries, the moves make sense, even if it is unprecedented, said Josh Douglas, an election law and voting rights professor at the University of Kentucky.“It just shows that courts sometimes need to be creative as an election draws nearer,” he said.The court ruled the maps violated the US constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act.The latter stems from the diminished number of majority-Black districts the commission drew because it connected the city to suburbs, which diluted the voting strength of Black voters. The districts should be at least 50-55% minority, observers say, and are currently about 35-40% minority.More importantly, the court ruled the maps violated the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits the use of race as the primary consideration in drawing lines. The process of drawing lines can frequently be drawn based on race, and Black Democrats in other states have have previously partnered with white Republicans.Bill Ballenger, a conservative-leaning Michigan political analyst, said the maps were “clearly” flawed, and noted the Democratic judge on the panel, Janet Neff, agreed with the GOP members. He scoffed at the notion of a “power grab”.“Of course they are saying all this, but the commission has given Republicans a lot of ammunition,” he said.The ruling was highly critical of the commission, and though Neff agreed with the majority decision, she questioned the need for a “harsh” tone in the panels’ decision. State Democrats who spoke to the Guardian said they suspected it was meant to undermine the commission’s credibility, but the commission has been beset by partisan infighting.The plaintiffs’ attorneys seized on that this week as the court continues to work out the redraw’s specifics: “The commission and its members appear more intent on cannibalizing each other than functioning as a cohesive group to draw a set of acceptable maps.”Ultimately, the issue boils down to having an effective caucus of Detroit senators and representatives, Gay-Dagnogo said. She pointed to the Detroit caucus’s success in negotiating on behalf of residents over auto insurance reform and state takeover of the city’s public school system. Even well-intentioned legislators sometimes propose policies that are bad for Detroiters, she added.“That’s the importance of having representation from your community, being well versed in those issues, and being able to get in these roles to advocate for your community,” Gay-Dagnogo said. More

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      Michigan GOP chair Kristina Karamo rightly ousted, say RNC lawyers

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      The Republican National Committee’s top attorneys have declared they believe the Michigan Republican chair, Kristina Karamo, was legitimately ousted from her position earlier this month, ending weeks of silence from the national party on a leadership crisis that has engulfed state Republicans.The factional split within the Michigan Republican party, over ideological differences as well as personal ones, has sown chaos with just months to go before the 2024 presidential election. In recent weeks, tensions escalated, with two feuding groups within the state party claiming to be its legitimate leaders.RNC general counsel Michael Whatley and chief counsel Matthew Raymer wrote in a letter obtained by the Guardian that they believed that an early January vote by state party officials to remove Karamo, who made her mark peddling election conspiracies after the 2020 election, as their chair was indeed legitimate – in spite of Karamo’s insistence that it was not.“Based upon its initial review, it appears to the counsel’s office that Ms Karamo was properly removed in accordance with the Michigan GOP bylaws on January 6,” they wrote in a letter to Karamo and Pete Hoekstra, who was elected to replace her by party members who engineered her ouster. They noted that the issue was not yet settled and that the RNC’s position was not final or binding.The RNC attorneys’ opinion offers Michigan and national Republicans guidance as they head to their winter meeting in Las Vegas at the end of the month. But it is not a definitive resolution in the factional dispute that has festered over the last year within their state party. The letter also declared that neither Karamo nor Hoekstra would be “credentialed as Michigan GOP chair” when those meetings convene.Until now the RNC had remained silent over the feud, especially since its current chair, Ronna McDaniel, is herself a former chair of the Michigan Republican party.But Karamo and her allies insist that even a ruling from the RNC won’t remove them from leadership. In a 25 January email to precinct delegates, the Michigan GOP general counsel – a Karamo ally who was also removed in the 6 January vote – wrote that he acknowledged the RNC letter was “authentic”, but added: “I do not care because their opinion is irrelevant to any resolution.”When Karamo took office nearly a year ago, she inherited an organization that was broke and divided – and in her year as chair, the party’s problems have worsened. Karamo, who embodies the GOP’s shift into stranger and more extreme political territory, made a name for herself as a vocal proponent of Trump’s false election claims, pushing election conspiracy theories as well as even wilder ideas (like claiming Jay-Z is a “satanist” and yoga is a “satanic ritual” ) during her 2022 run for secretary of state.She was defeated in the general election but refused to concede, then beat a Trump-backed nominee for state party chair who had voiced similar campaign conspiracy theories last February after she promised to revitalize the state party’s moribund fundraising operation.But the flow of grassroots cash Karamo promised never came. Divisions deepened in county chapters over the growth of extreme factions on the right, with physical altercations breaking out on multiple occasions. The party under her leadership got wrapped up in litigation. Even though the party was nearly broke, under Karamo’s leadership state GOP took out a loan to cover a more than $100,000 speaking fee to bring Jim Caviezel, a celebrity figure in the QAnon movement and the starring actor in The Passion of the Christ, to the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference in September.By the time a group of Michigan GOP committee members moved to oust Karamo on 6 January, tensions had been brewing for months.As the RNC stayed silent, other powerful Michigan and national Republicans weighed in.The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the official party organization for Republican House candidates, expressed frustrations about the party’s spending last week in a letter to the Michigan GOP general counsel under Karamo, Daniel Hartman.“I will not deny that we are growing increasingly alarmed by reports that the Michigan GOP is in dire financial straits and grossly mismanaging their limited funds,” wrote NRCC general counsel Erin Clark, in a letter obtained by the Guardian. The Michigan GOP, Clark admonished, was not acting like a party that “adheres to conservative principles; or frankly, one that has the desire or ability to elect Republicans to office”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCongressman John James, a Michigan Republican up for re-election in a contested district in 2024, nodded to the leadership crisis on X on Saturday.“Congrats to Pete Hoekstra on being elected as the chair of MRP,” wrote James. “I look forward to working with you to put America First, hold our battleground #MI10 seat, and deliver victories for conservatives up and down the ballot this November.”Karamo’s opponents say they believe a new party chair will bring unity, and, most critically in an election year, the return of major donors such as the DeVoses, a Michigan family that lavishes donations upon conservative causes, into the party’s good graces. They are betting on Hoekstra, the former ambassador to the Netherlands under the Trump administration, to bridge the divide between the party’s activist base and its more traditional donor class.But if one goal of Karamo’s challengers is to reunify the party, they may have to assuage local dissent.“They should have come to us and asked for our opinion,” said Mary Harp, a precinct delegate in the Oakland county Republican party, the largest Republican party chapter in the state. Harp said she did not support Karamo in her run for GOP chair last year, but expressed frustration in the way Karamo was removed, saying it lacked the input of lower ranking members of the party.“A lot of us are going to have a hard time going forward supporting the state party,” she warned. More