As President Biden and former President Trump march steadily toward their parties’ presidential nominations, Michigan’s primary could reveal significant political dangers for both.

Trump, despite his dominance in early Republican voting, faces a bloc of stubbornly persistent Republican voters who favor his only remaining rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and are skeptical at best about the former’s prospects president in a rematch against Biden.

As for the incumbent president, Biden faces perhaps his most powerful electoral obstacle yet: an energized movement of disillusioned voters angry over his handling of the Gaza war and a relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics say is too has been supportive.

This dynamic will be tested in Michigan, the last major primary state before Super Tuesday and a critical swing state in the November general election. Even if they post dominant victories on Tuesday as expected, both campaigns will be watching the margins for signs of weakness in a state that went Biden’s way by 3 percentage points in 2020.

Biden said in a local radio interview in Michigan on Monday that it would be one of five states that would determine the winner in November.

Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country. More than 310,000 residents are of Middle Eastern or North African descent. Nearly half of Dearborn’s approximately 110,000 residents claim Arab descent.

It has become the epicenter of Democratic discontent over the White House’s actions in the war between Israel and Hamas, now nearly five months old, following Hamas’ deadly attack in October. 7 attack and kidnapping of more than 200 hostages. In response, Israel bombed much of Gaza, killing almost 30,000 people, two-thirds of whom were women and children, according to Palestinian figures.

Democrats angry that Biden has supported Israel’s offensive and resisted calls for a ceasefire are calling on voters on Tuesday to choose uncommitted people instead of Biden.

The uncommitted effort, which began in earnest a few weeks ago, has been supported by officials like 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, spokesman for the Listen to Michigan campaign that is pushing voters to select uncommitted voters, said the effort is a way for us to vote for a ceasefire, a way for us to vote for peace to vote and a way for us to vote against war.

Shaher Abdulrab, 35, an engineer from Dearborn, said Tuesday morning that he voted for Trump. Abdulrab said he believes Arab Americans have much more in common with Republicans than Democrats.

Abdulrab said he voted for Biden four years ago but believes Trump will win the general election in November in part because of the support he would receive from Arab Americans.

I’m not voting for Trump because I want Trump. I just don’t want Biden, Abdulrab said. Hi [Biden] has not called for an end to the war in Gaza.

Trump won the state in 2016 by just 11,000 votes over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and lost the state four years later by nearly 154,000 votes to Biden. Alawieh said the uncommitted effort is intended to demonstrate that the movement has at least the number of votes equal to Trump’s 2016 margin of victory, demonstrating how influential that bloc can be.

The situation in Gaza is a priority for many people here, Alawieh said. President Biden is failing to provide voters facing the war crimes inflicted by our American tax dollars with something to vote for.

Our Revolution, the organizing group once tied to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), also urged progressive voters to choose “uncommitted” on Tuesday, saying it would send a message to Biden to change course on Gaza NOW or risk losing Michigan. to Trump in November.

California Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), a Biden backer who held several rallies and listening sessions in Michigan late last week, said he told community members that despite his differences on the war, he would nonetheless support Biden support because he has a much better chance of peace in the Middle East than Trump.

I also said I admire those who are using their ballot in a quintessentially American way to effect policy change, Khanna said Monday, adding that Biden supporters should proactively work with the disengaged voters to try to gain their confidence to win back.

The worst thing we can do is try to shame them or minimize their efforts,” he said.

Trump has drawn enthusiastic crowds at most of his rallies, including a Feb. 17 rally outside Detroit where more than 2,000 people gathered in a frigid airplane hangar.

Data from AP VoteCast, a series of surveys of Republican voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, shows that his core voters so far are overwhelmingly white, mostly over 50 and generally without a college degree. He will probably have to appeal to a much more diverse group of voters in November. And he has underperformed in suburban areas that are key in states like Michigan.

Several of Trump’s top picks in the 2022 midterm contests in Michigan lost their campaigns, further underscoring his loss of political influence in the state. Meanwhile, the state’s Republican party is riven by divisions among several pro-Trump factions, potentially weakening its power at a time when Republicans in Michigan are trying to lay the groundwork to defeat Biden on the issue.

Both Biden and Trump have dominated their respective primary bids so far. Biden has sailed to Democratic victories in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire, with the last win coming via a write-in campaign. Trump has won all the early Republican state contests and his team hopes to lock up the delegates needed to secure the nomination by mid-March.

Still, an undeterred Haley has vowed to continue her presidential primary campaign until at least Super Tuesday on March 5, when 15 states, including California and one territory, will hold Republican nominating contests.

As Haley staggered through Michigan on Sunday and Monday, voters who showed up at her events expressed their enthusiasm for her during Tuesday’s primaries, even as her losses in the first four states of the year made it seem increasingly likely that she would win the nomination. wouldn’t win.

She seems honorable, said Rita Lazdins, a retired microbiologist from Grand Haven, Michigan, who declined to say Trump’s name in an interview Monday. Honorable is not what the 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.