Welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Peter Alexander here in Washington, as we like to say around these parts. If it's Tuesday, voters are voting somewhere. Today that somewhere is the state of Michigan, a key battleground this fall where Republicans and Democrats are holding

presidential primaries and where protest votes to the likely nominees in both parties are also

taking center stage. First, the Republican side.

This is the second Donald Trump versus Nicky Haley

match up in four days with Haley looking

to solidify that 40% of the anti-Trump vote

that she notched in South Carolina and New Hampshire as we head into

Super Tuesday, just one week from today.

On the Democratic side, the protest vote against President Biden is not a rival candidate but rather what's

essentially a vote of no confidence. Michigan primary voters are allowed to cast

uncommitted ballots and many activists with roots in the state sizable Arab and Muslim American communities

are pushing Michiganders to vote uncommitted as a way to protest the president's handling

of the Israel-Hamas War. Progressives have been ratcheting up their pressure on the president to stop backing Israel's military campaign in Gaza,

and while not the permanent ceasefire that those voters want, President Biden said last night that a pause in fighting could be coming soon.

Can you give us a sense of what you think that ceasefire will start?

Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend I mean the end of the weekend at least my my

national security advisor tells me that we're close we're close and not done yet

and my hope is by next Monday we'll have a ceasefire.

Organizers say the uncommitted campaign's goal is to notch 10,000 votes today, but that

number would actually be notably smaller than what is considered a typical

uncommitted turnout in the state's Democratic primary. Check this out. Michigan's last three Democratic

primaries all saw about 20,000 uncommitted ballots in each cycle,

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