LANSING, Mich.—As expected, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden last night both easily won the Michigan Republican and Democratic primaries, respectively.
“I’m so proud of the results because they’re far greater than anticipated,” Trump said in remarks to the Michigan GOP after the race was called for him at 9 p.m. just after the last polls closed.
“We win Michigan; we win the whole thing,” he added.
Trump won 68 percent of the votes to 26 percent for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, with 86 percent reporting.
This was Trump’s sixth straight win and his largest yet. At this rate, the former president is on track to clinch the GOP nomination by around mid-March.
Haley’s campaign, meanwhile, cast the results as a “warning sign” for Trump.
“Joe Biden is losing about 20 percent of the Democratic vote today, and many say it’s a sign of his weakness in November. Donald Trump is losing about 35 percent of the vote. That’s a flashing warning sign for Trump in November,” campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement.
While Biden garnered 80 percent of the vote, with 50 percent reporting, his win was overshadowed by a boycott effort over the Israel-Hamas war.
The “Listen to Michigan” campaign, backed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), asked people to vote “uncommitted” in protest against the administration’s handling of the conflict.
The campaign notched 13 percent of the vote, with half of the votes counted, well above the goal set by organizers.
“Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations. Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom who voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza,” said campaign manager Layla Elabed.
After departing a polling place in Lansing, Michigan, Paul Mink said he voted for Biden but sympathized with the “uncommitted” voters.
“I understand their feeling behind it, but I disagree with doing it that way because the stakes are so severe if Biden loses,” he told The Epoch Times.
—Nathan Worcester
SHUTDOWN RISK FADES
Congressional leaders are optimistic that there will not be a partial government shutdown ahead of the Friday deadline.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) met with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office yesterday. Johnson also talked with the president one-on-one in the Oval Office.
Johnson said the meeting was “frank and honest” and he is “very optimistic” about preventing a government shutdown. Currently, four funding bills are set to lapse on Friday, and the remaining eight later on March 8.
Later on Tuesday, reports emerged that Congressional leaders are discussing putting forward yet another stopgap funding bill so lawmakers have more time to pass all 12 spending bills. If this measure, known as a continuing resolution (CR), were to pass, this would be the fourth CR since September.
“Any CR would be part of a larger agreement to finish a number of appropriations bills, ensuring adequate time for drafting text and for members to review prior to casting votes,” Johnson’s spokesman said in a statement yesterday.
Meanwhile, Schumer described the meeting as “productive” and “intense.”
“We are making good progress” in trying to avert a government shutdown, he said, adding that the disagreements between the sides are not “insurmountable.”
Schumer recalled that the discussion over assistance for Ukraine “was one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered in my many meetings at the Oval Office,” adding that McConnell, the president, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Jeffries stressed the urgency of getting aid to Kyiv.
The Senate passed a package that included aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as border measures weeks ago. Most Republicans however voted against it, and Johnson appears in no rush to push the bill forward in the House. He, like many other Republicans, strongly object to the bill, saying it does not go far enough to secure the border.
The speaker said he told the president that the House would look at the issues included in the Senate package, such as foreign assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific.
Johnson stressed the need to secure the southern border.
He reiterated that the president can take unilateral action to secure the border.
“It’s time for action. It is a catastrophe, and it must stop,” said Johnson. “And we will get the government funded, and we'll keep working on that.”
—Jackson Richman
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- Hunter Biden appears at a closed-door deposition before House impeachment investigators.
- The Supreme Court will hear the case of Garland v. Cargill, which concerns whether a bump stock transforms a semiautomatic firearm into the type of “machine gun” prohibited under federal law.
- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack testifies before Senate Agriculture Committee
The Biden administration is looking to have land as big as 55 million acres for solar farms, reports The Epoch Times’ Kevin Stocklin. This is an initiative by the Bureau of Land Management called the Western Solar Plan.
Aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former President Donald Trump are discussing a possible endorsement of the latter by the former, reports the New York Times McConnell and Trump have an acrimonious relationship and have not talked since 2020. A McConnell endorsement would seal the deal for Trump in getting the endorsements of every member of the congressional GOP leadership.
A former attorney for Nathan Wade—one of the prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, who allegedly had a personal relationship with District Attorney Fani Willis—sought to clear the air amid allegations he misled defense attorneys about the relationship, reports The Epoch Times’ Catherine Yang.
Longshot GOP candidate Ryan Binkley dropped out of the race yesterday, reports The Epoch Times’ Savannah Pointer. The businessman and pastor announced his support for Trump.
The U.S. Army is cutting 24,000 job openings as it looks to fix its recruiting struggles, reports NTD News’ Ryan Morgan. This will result in a 5 percent reduction in its ranks by federal fiscal year 2029.
