Over 100,000 “uncommitted” ballots were cast by voters in Michigan’s Democratic primary election Tuesday night as a Democratic group staged a protest against President Joe Biden over the United States’ continued support of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Middle East.
According to Decision Desk HQ, while Biden easily won Tuesday’s election and received 81.1% of the Democratic primary vote, the “uncommitted” ballot initiative received a significant 13.3% of the vote.
Business Insider reported that the massive amount of voters who chose “uncommitted” over Biden was prompted by the “Listen to Michigan” campaign that state Democrats launched to pressure Biden to push Israel to agree to a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. The Listen to Michigan campaign was led by Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s sister, Layla Elabed.
“I was proud today to walk in, and pull a Democratic ballot, and vote ‘uncommitted,'” Tlaib said in a video message in support of her sister’s protest initiative against Biden. “We must make sure that our government is about us, about the people. When 74 percent of Democrats in Michigan support a cease-fire, yet President Biden is not hearing us. This is the way we can use our democracy to say, ‘Listen, listen to Michigan.'”
Business Insider reported that while it is not yet clear how many of Tuesday’s “uncommitted” voters in the Democratic primary will remain “uncommitted” in November’s election, the organizers of the Listen to Michigan initiative have warned that it will not be their fault if Biden loses to Trump in the state.
In a statement obtained by Business Insider, Elabed claimed that Michigan Democrats who supported Biden in the 2020 presidential election “feel completely betrayed” as the president has seemingly not listened to their anti-Israel agenda. “President Biden has funded the bombs falling on the family members of people right here in Michigan,” Elabed added.
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Business Insider reported that prior to Tuesday’s election, the organizers of Listen to Michigan had announced a goal of 10,000 “uncommitted” votes to signal how Democrat voters in Michigan could impact Biden’s reelection campaign. The 10,000-vote goal represented the approximately 10,700 votes that flipped Michigan red in 2016 and helped Trump win, setting the stage for what could be another close election in Michigan in November if Biden does not recapture the support of “uncommitted” Democrats.
Abbas Alawieh, a Listen to Michigan spokesperson, previously stated, “President Biden himself, by failing to call for a cease-fire, is on track to deliver the presidency back to Donald Trump and his white supremacist buddies.”
