Joe Biden Wins Michigan Democratic Primary

President Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential primary in Michigan with ease on Tuesday.

Biden’s victory was expected, since the president no longer has any major Democratic primary challengers.

U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips’ campaign appears to have peaked in New Hampshire, where Biden was not on the ballot yet still won more than 60% of the vote as a write-in candidate.

Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat, had planned to develop momentum with a solid showing in Michigan, but earlier this month he announced that his fundraising had failed to take off and he was laying off most of his campaign staff. He still plans to remain in the running in states where he has qualified for the ballot in order to provide an alternative for Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who share his view that Biden is incapable of defeating former President Donald Trump in November’s general election.

Biden’s victory in Michigan marks an important milestone for Biden. The president had instructed the Democratic National Committee to move up Michigan’s place on the presidential primary calendar precisely because of the state’s diversity and its pivotal role in general elections for the presidency.

Biden has much to campaign on in Michigan, a manufacturing-heavy state that could see outsized gains from the president’s bills funding infrastructure improvement, seeding a domestic microchip industry and investing in clean-energy development. The United Auto Workers union, which remains influential in the state, endorsed Biden in January after refusing to join in the AFL-CIO labor federation and other unions’ joint endorsements of Biden in June.

It surely made a difference that Biden joined striking UAW workers on the picket line in September