President Joe Biden will not have the support of the top Democrat official in a key Michigan battleground county this election cycle, underscoring enthusiasm problems for Biden within his own party less than six months before the election.
Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel (D) told Detroit News columnist Noal Finley Monday that he does not plan to vote in the presidential election because he dislikes Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“I don’t have an interest in voting for president, and I feel disappointed by that,” he said. “I dislike both candidates. All they do is talk negative about each other, instead of talking about themselves and their ideas.”
“I won’t work for him. I’ll let the people of Macomb make their own choice. I’m not voting for anyone just because a political party tells me I have to,” he added.
Democrat consultant Adolph Mongo told Finley that Hackel’s decision “hurts Biden” and “Democrats will have to put a lot more resources” in Macomb County. He also pointed to Hackel’s moderate tendencies as a reason for his lack of support for Biden or Trump.
Macomb County, situated in the southeast part of the state, is Michigan’s third-largest county population-wise, with close to 900,000 residents, and has played a key role in recent elections. The presidential candidate who has won it in three of the last four presidential elections has gone on to win the state and the White House.
Trump won Macomb County in 2016 by double digits after former President Barack Obama won it in 2008 and 2012 by 8.6 percent and 4 percent, according to the New York Times. The trend broke in 2020 when Trump carried the county by eight points, but Biden took the state and electoral college.
Hackel’s rejection of Biden comes as the president is facing problems with Democrat voters in Michigan and elsewhere. Notably, the anti-Biden “uncommitted” movement, which has seen more than 500,000 Democratic primary voters nationally protest Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war with variations of “uncommitted” votes, began with the Listen to Michigan campaign. The movement includes Muslims, Arab-Americans, young voters, and far-left progressives.
The group smashed its goal of 10,000 “uncommitted” protest votes in the Michigan primary, garnering more than 100,000. The threat is these uncommitted voters in Michigan and other key swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will stay home in the general election, posing a major liability to Biden’s reelection.
For reference, the 101,430 uncommitted votes in Michigan approach the 154,188-vote margin between Trump and Biden in 2020.
And with the primary season winding down and the general election ramping up, a Muslim activist group called Abandon Biden is organizing operations in Michigan and eight other swing states to prevent Biden from winning reelection, the Star-Tribune reported.
“The group’s leaders say they want to politically punish the president for what they describe as enabling mass civilian casualties in Gaza,” per the outlet’s Maya Rao.
