Pro-Palestine activists scored a win with a strong turnout for the “uncommitted” movement on Super Tuesday, with over 250,000 voters selecting “uncommitted” or a similar option over President Joe Biden and sending him a forceful message: change course on the genocide in Gaza, or risk losing to Donald Trump this fall.
Minnesota had the largest percentage of “uncommitted” votes of the seven states with an “uncommitted” or “no preference” option voting on Tuesday, with 19 percent support, or about 46,000 votes, with over 95 percent of votes counted Wednesday morning. This is enough to give “uncommitted” 11 delegates out of 75 total given to the state, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party announced.
As some advocates noted, support for the movement was especially strong in Minneapolis, where “uncommitted” won a majority of the vote in three state House districts, with as high as 56 percent going to “uncommitted” and as low as 35 percent of the vote going to Biden.
Other states also saw strong turnout for the movement. Even in North Carolina, where a large formal campaign for the movement hadn’t been ongoing, “no preference” received 13 percent of the vote, with solid support from liberal areas that Biden needs to win the state and a whopping 37 percent support in Robeson County, in the southern region of the state.
As on Wednesday morning, over 254,000 votes had been counted for “uncommitted” across Super Tuesday states with the option. (Over half of states holding primaries on Tuesday didn’t have an “uncommitted” option or didn’t report write-in votes.) The movement got 9.4 percent of the vote in Massachusetts, including nearly a quarter of the ballots in Somerville County, near Boston. In Minnesota and Tennessee, roughly 8 percent of voters selected “uncommitted,” while 6 percent in Alabama and 4 percent in Iowa cast the protest vote.
While voters cast ballots for “uncommitted,” Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza had killed over 30,000 Palestinians and has plunged the entire population of Gaza into deep instability, with widespread disease and famine. This campaign has been sponsored and endorsed by the Biden administration, which has cut off humanitarian aid to the primary aid group in the region and sent thousands of tons of weapons to Israel to kill Palestinians.
These results spell deep trouble for Biden, with a growing proportion of voters deeply dissatisfied with Biden’s support of Israel’s genocide. While he is easily winning the primary race — due in part to a lack of consensus around and low profile of other candidates — his presidency is in jeopardy this fall. In 2020, Biden won three crucial swing states by a margin of less than 45,000 votes, while he won eight states by less than a 3.5 percent margin.
The Biden campaign is already showing signs that it is frightened by the movement. Though Biden is refusing to make substantial policy changes in his Gaza approach, Biden and fellow officials have pivoted to coopting the word “ceasefire” in its messaging on Gaza when the administration is instead seeking a “pause” in the attacks — something that even Israeli officials have been negotiating for months, while still pledging to wrest total control over Gaza.
The movement notched a win last week in Michigan, where the campaign, known as “Listen to Michigan,” originated. In the crucial swing state, 13 percent of voters selected “uncommitted,” with over 101,000 votes. The results far surpassed expectations, even for the leaders of the campaign.
There are still several states remaining in the primary election that have an “uncommitted” option on the ballot before the Democratic National Convention in August. The campaign may pick up a significant amount of support in Washington in particular, which is holding its primary next week, with support for the movement from left-wing campaigners and the largest private sector union in the state.
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