Today is Michigan's presidential primary for both major parties, and in the state any voter can cast a ballot regardless in either primary because Michigan has no party registration. Neither winner is in question, but the Democratic Presidential Primary in particular has garnered national attention over a concerted movement to vote “Uncommitted” as a rebuke to President Biden and his handling of the Israel-Gaza war among other issues. 

Michigan has the largest Arab-American population per capita (2.1%) in the United States which is a big reason why this primary has attracted so much attention. Not only is it the largest population, but it is also heavily concentrated in municipalities in the metro Detroit area, most notably Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Hamtramck which will make results easy to identify.  

History

Michigan voters are no strangers to voting uncommitted. In the 2012 Democratic Presidential Primary with only President Obama and Uncommitted on the ballot, Uncommitted received 10.69% of the votes statewide. Under the rules for today's Presidential Primary, Uncommitted would have received delegates from Congressional District 1 (which encompasses most of the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan) and Congressional District 10 which at the time contained most of the “thumb” and northern Macomb County. 

The Upper Peninsula is filled with ancestral Democrats who were unhappy with the way the party was moving. Even in this primary, there are several counties in the Upper Penninsula where Democratic ballots cast outnumber Republican ballots cast at the end of early voting. Uncommitted votes won’t be attributable to any one cause, but rather a myriad of reasons. Uncommitted hitting double digits would not be unprecedented, but winning at-large delegates would be. 

Delegate Apportionment

Michigan has 117 pledged delegates and 22 unpledged delegates. Unpledged delegates are the equivalent of superdelegates and can vote for whoever they’d like if there is a second round of voting at the Democratic National Convention. To receive any pledged delegates, a ballot option must hit a threshold of 15%. 

There are 40 pledged delegates elected at-large. There are 25 regular at-large delegates, and the other 15 are Party Leader and Elected Official (PLEO) delegates. These are party leaders and officials not already unpledged delegates whom the Democratic State Central Committee would still like to be delegates. Uncommitted is relatively unlikely to get the 15% needed to get any of these at-large delegates.