NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with the co-chair of the Biden campaign Mitch Landrieu about the Michigan primary results and challenges for the campaign moving forward.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In Michigan, a push to encourage voters to send President Biden a message about his refusal to call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, it may have worked. The group Listen to Michigan did not ask their followers to stay home from yesterday’s Democratic primary. Instead, it asked them to vote for, quote, “uncommitted.” Well, statewide, just over 13% of voters did, taking a little of the shine off of President Biden’s victory. To discuss the Michigan results and the campaign’s direction going forward, we’re going to bring in Mitch Landrieu, national co-chair of the Biden campaign, former mayor of New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu, welcome.
MITCH LANDRIEU: Hey, how are you?
KELLY: Hey, I’m well. Thank you. I want to say, congratulations on winning the primary.
LANDRIEU: Thank you.
KELLY: And I want to ask, how worried are you about this many people voting uncommitted?
LANDRIEU: Well, first of all, the president got 80% last night on top of 96%, 90% in New Hampshire – and then, of course, in South Carolina, and then of course, in Nevada. So the president continues to really hit it out of the park, a really, really, really strong night. There’s no doubt that there was some folks in Michigan that wanted to send the president a message. He’s received that message many, many times. He actually sent a team of high-ranking officials out to, of course, Michigan to talk to folks about the very difficult issue that the president and the United States is confronting in the war between Israel and Gaza. So that message has been received. The president actually thinks that people ought to voice their opinion. But last night, he got 80% of the vote…
KELLY: Yeah, but just to be clear, the…
LANDRIEU: …Thirteen percent of the vote voiced their…
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