Anti-Israel groups pushed back against President Joe Biden in the Michigan presidential primary Tuesday, encouraging voters to protest the administration’s policies in the Israel-Gaza conflict by selecting “uncommitted” on their ballots instead of voting for the Democrat frontrunner. To vote uncommitted, as The Washington Post explained, means a voter is “placing a party vote but [is] not currently supporting any of the candidates listed.”
“Progressive voters across the state of Michigan made their voices heard,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, in a news release. “They sent a resounding message to President Biden: Change course now on Gaza or risk alienating key voter blocs needed to defeat Trump.”
More than 13 percent of Michigan Democrat voters, or more than 100,000 people, chose “uncommitted” in the primary, while about 81 percent voted for Biden, according to The New York Times. The uncommitted vote far outpaced Democrat challengers Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, who each garnered around 3 percent. Our Revolution, a group Bernie Sanders started after his 2016 campaign, encouraged the effort, insisting Biden’s attempts to appease pro-Hamas groups didn’t go far enough — a signal that radicals are again dominating the mainstream of the Democrat Party.
Our Revolution sent out tens of thousands of calls, texts, and emails to encourage its members to vote in protest of Biden’s Israel-Gaza policies, according to a news release. The group hopes to mobilize its 8 million members to force Biden to adopt policies more friendly to Hamas.
Our Revolution teamed up with Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a terrorist-sympathizing member of “The Squad,” to robocall Our Revolution’s 87,000 Michigan members and urge them to vote uncommitted.
“Vote uncommitted in the primary election today,” Tlaib said in the call. “Help protect our democracy by sending a clear message to President Biden: Change course on Gaza, pursue peace, save lives … help us win back the trust of the voting coalition who got you elected in 2020.”
Earlier this month, Tlaib was the only member of the House to not vote to condemn rape and sexual assault by Hamas, according to Newsweek.
She defended her use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” on X, formerly known as Twitter, in November, despite the phrase clearly calling for the erasure of the Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The chant, she claimed, is simply an “aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence.” It has been widely used by antisemites on college campuses after the Oct. 7 terror attacks to call for Israel’s erasure.
Pro-Hamas opposition to Biden has especially gained traction in majority-Arab Dearborn.
“We cast our vote for ‘uncommitted,’” Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said in a video posted to Instagram Monday. “What we want is a change of course and a just solution for the Palestinian people.”
Hammoud wrote in The New York Times that his community feels “betrayed” by what he sees as Biden’s insufficient support for Gaza.
“Until just a few months ago, I firmly believed that Joe Biden was one of the most consequential and transformative presidents that our nation had seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” Hammoud wrote. “But no amount of landmark legislation can outweigh the more than 100,000 people killed, wounded or missing in Gaza.”
Hammoud said he could not support what he called the continued “genocide” of Palestinians, so he protested Biden by voting uncommitted in the primary. In Dearborn, home to a large Muslim population, “uncommitted” was beating Biden 56 to 40 percent Tuesday night, with 97 percent of votes tallied.
That poses a problem for Biden, who will likely need strong support from communities like Dearborn to win Michigan.
Earlier this month, he sent top officials to make apologies to Hammoud for the administration’s initial support of Israel after Hamas killed close to 1,200 civilians in southern Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said the administration was sorry for its messaging.
“We are very well aware that we have [made] missteps in the course of responding to this crisis since Oct. 7,” Finer said.
Biden has recently been softening his stance toward Hamas-controlled Gaza and toughening his rhetoric toward Israel. While the U.S. vetoed a United Nations ceasefire resolution last week, according to BBC, Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he could “lose support from around the world” if he “keeps up with this incredibly conservative government [Israel has].” Biden said Monday he was optimistic for a ceasefire by “next Monday,” according to CNN, but Israel and Hamas were unsure what exactly he was referencing.
But apparently, this is not enough to satisfy the pro-Hamas groups.
Some Arab Americans who feel Biden has supported Israel too much have formed groups like “Abandon Biden,” while Hammoud called Biden’s policies “un-American.”
“My greatest fear is that Mr. Biden will not be remembered as the president who saved American democracy in 2020,” he wrote, “but rather as the president who sacrificed it for Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024.”
Geevarghese warned Monday that Biden risks losing the Muslim vote unless he further changes his policy in support of Hamas.
“Change course now on Gaza or risk alienating key voter blocs needed to defeat Trump in November,” he wrote. “If Biden doesn’t recalibrate his foreign policy, 2024 could look less like 2020 and more like 2016, when Arab Americans and Muslim Americans rejected Hillary Clinton due in part to her record in the Middle East.”
Geevarghese said the effort is an appeal to Biden’s self-interest, and that peace will begin with “making progressive voices heard in the primaries in Michigan and beyond.”
“For Democrats to defeat Donald Trump in November, Biden must realign with his voter base and listen to the diverse, progressive voices urging him to change course in Gaza,” Geevarghese said in a news release Tuesday. “Until he does, we will continue showing up, speaking out, and activating Our Revolution’s eight million grassroots members across the country to use their ballot to demand change.”
The weight pro-Hamas radicals pull in Michigan — and Biden’s clear understanding that it will hurt him at the polls unless he appeases them — shows once again that radical is the new mainstream in the Democrat Party.
