While Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the vast majority of delegates needed to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in this year’s election, dozens of delegates remain uncommitted, and are attempting to use their status to persuade Harris’s campaign to adopt a stricter policy against Israel as it wages a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
The uncommitted delegates were selected by hundreds of thousands of voters across the U.S. during the primary season, when President Joe Biden was the nominee. The movement was aimed directly at convincing Biden (and now Harris) to call for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, as well as to implement a weapons embargo against Israel, in accordance with U.S. law regarding relationships with countries that engage in human rights violations.
Two delegates representing uncommitted voters in Kentucky spoke to Truthout about their aims while attending the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago this week, explaining what would happen, going forward, if they are unsuccessful in getting the Harris campaign to alter its current policy.
“Part of the reason that we’re here [as uncommitted delegates] is not only to stand with our Palestinian American friends and our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel that are being slaughtered in a war, but also because we have a duty to serve our constituents back in Kentucky” by representing their interests, delegate Violet Olds said. “My goal is to continue to vote ‘present’ because I represent those voters, and I’ve communicated with them, and they’re like, ‘yea, we want you to stay uncommitted,’ mostly for the situation in Gaza.”
John Lackey, another uncommitted delegate from Kentucky, seconded Olds’s words. He also noted there “has been some shift” in how the uncommitted delegates feel about Harris, including because of her selection of Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota) as her vice president.
When asked if Harris would be a better leader on Palestine than Biden is, Lackey said, “Yes I do.”
Olds also said she has more “hope” for the Harris-Walz ticket than she did for the Biden-Harris one because leaders from Harris’s campaign “have been willing to sit down and talk to the uncommitted leaders, the organizers that have put this movement together, to stand up for the rights of Palestine.”
Notably, however, the Democratic Party’s platform doesn’t contain any language suggesting a change from Biden’s approach is coming. Olds said she would vote “no” on the platform “because there was no language specifically calling for ceasefire or an arms embargo to Israel.”
The two also rejected the idea that they and other uncommitted delegates should just “fall in line” and support the Harris-Walz ticket without making demands.
“When we are a little bit contrarian, that’s a good thing for the Democratic Party and that’s a good thing for the country as well,” Lackey said.
Olds also described her dissent from other delegates as a “patriotic” action.
The group of uncommitted delegates and their backers said they wouldn’t give up if they cannot achieve their goals by the end of this week.
“This is a convention, it’s a ‘dog and pony’ show, and the real work isn’t done in the public’s eyes, it’s done behind the scenes,” Olds said, noting that the Harris campaign would benefit from including ceasefire language and a weapons embargo against Israel in their platform.
According to recent polling, Olds is correct. An Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project/YouGov survey released last week found that 34 percent of Democratic-leaning and independent voters would be more likely to vote for her in the general election against GOP nominee Donald Trump if she openly supported a lasting ceasefire and arms embargo. Conversely, only 7 percent said that they’d be less likely to vote for her.
Although fewer in numbers within the convention, uncommitted delegates, their voters and their allies — including some committed delegates to Harris — have been taking actions at the DNC, engaging in protest marches and holding daily press briefings with media interested in hearing from them at McCormick Place, a convention hall on the south side of Chicago’s downtown area, where delegates are meeting during the day before transporting themselves to the United Center for evening festivities.
Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan and one of the leaders of the uncommitted movement, spoke at a press briefing on Monday, stating that more than 740,000 votes were cast as “uncommitted” in his home state “as a pro-peace, anti-war, pro-Palestinian” message “to this administration that we need a change in Gaza policy, we need a ceasefire, we need to stop sending weapons that are being used to kill families.”
Alawieh added that it was important for the group to receive more than platitudes from Harris regarding the matter — that, in order for uncommitted delegates at the convention to convince their constituents that true change is coming, they would need concrete proof.
If we go to them (uncommitted voters) right now and say, ‘hey, trust us, there’s been a change at the top, Harris feels a little bit different in her heart,’ that’s not going to win back votes. We need a plan, we need to know how killing is going to be stopped.
Later on Monday, tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of Chicago near the United Center, voicing their demands for a ceasefire and a weapons embargo in person at the DNC.
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