How Trump and Biden Can Bring Home Their Holdouts

D onald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s large victories in Tuesday’s Michigan primary come with a warning, many analysts argue. They’re right, but it’s easy to overstate the obstacles the two men face. The message to both candidates is the same: Swerve slightly; don’t turn.

Trump’s supposed roadblock is the one-third or so of Republican voters who remain resistant to his charms. Nikki Haley claims they are old-guard Republicans worried about the party’s drift away from smaller government and an optimistic engagement with the world toward a populism distrustful of allies and unconcerned about government power.

She’s right, but it’s also clear that this segment of the party is shrinking fast. Catering to them to unify the party would destroy Trump’s core appeal, that he understands “what time it is,” to borrow the phrase commonly used by the online Right. The majority of GOP voters are scared of the future, and they are unwilling to follow someone who doesn’t share that core worldview.

Trump also knows that most of those people will support him despite their misgivings. Joe Biden’s Democrats are running fast to the left, leaving moderates in a daze and Reaganite conservatives worried. He’ll use the fall campaign to drive that point home.

Most isn’t all, however, and even a small group that peels off might cost Trump the White House. That’s why he should emulate Mitt Romney and make some concession that this group will value. Romney was still losing 20–33 percent of the vote in primaries even after his major opponents had all dropped out. That signaled weakness on his right, so Romney named Paul Ryan — then a darling of the movement Right for his small-government views — as his VP running mate. That small move unified the party. Romney’s loss is more attributable to his inability to convince blue-collar white independents to back him than to any weakness among Republicans.

Trump could accomplish the same thing without sacrificing his vice-presidential pick. Perhaps a clear statement that he acknowledges our NATO treaty obligations, or a pledge to introduce a balanced-budget constitutional amendment would do the trick. Nods like this would be welcomed by the holdouts without hurting him among independents. That, rather than a radical shift in course, is Trump’s best option going forward.

Biden has a similar issue with holdouts in his party. The press and progressives are hyping the 13 percent of Michigan voters who checked the “uncommitted” box on Tuesday. These voters were purportedly angry over Biden’s policy toward Israel in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack and the subsequent war. Worrywarts are telling him he needs to move in their direction if he wants to make them happy in November.

Perhaps, but Biden needs to do so from the position of strength he holds among Democrats. Over 81 percent of Democrats backed him in Michigan, and that follows even larger vote shares in the Nevada and South Carolina primaries. The fact is that Democrats may not be excited, but they overwhelmingly want him, compared with the alternatives who chose to run.

Many of those who voted uncommitted, like their GOP counterparts, will come home by November anyway. The uncommitted vote was highest in two types of communities, those populated by white progressives who voted for Bernie Sanders in 2020 and those home to Arab and other Muslim voters. Progressives may wish Biden were more liberal, but they will not withhold their votes when the alternative is Donald Trump.

That leaves Arab and Muslim voters, and here too the bark is worse than the bite. Biden carried Michigan by 155,000 votes in 2020. He got only a bit over 107,000 combined from the four cities with Arab-heavy populations. He could lose every single one of them — which won’t happen — and still carry Michigan.

Biden also has to consider what placating them would do to other parts of his coalition. Jews are a larger part of the electorate in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Arizona, and radically curtailing support for Israel’s war against Hamas would certainly upset them. Independents also largely back Israel over Hamas and would be put off by a sudden turn to the left to assuage the uncommitted brigade.

That means Biden should do something akin to what Trump should do: Nod in the dissidents’ direction without shifting much. He could make statements about suspending or limiting aid for Israel after the war should that nation not commit to establishing a viable Palestinian entity, for example. That would anger many Israelis but probably not upset the potential Biden coalition much while showing the holdouts that he’ll do something tangible to advance their cause.

Elections have consequences, and Michigan’s are no exception. The primary takeaway, however, is that the consequences fall more on the party minorities than on the winners. They need to accept their weak positions within their coalition and cut the best deals they can when they still have some skin in the game.