‘Groundbreaking’: Michigan’s uncommitted vote for Gaza should ‘worry’ Biden

Ali Harb and Joseph Stepansky

February 28, 2024

In the Michigan city known as the capital of Arab America, United States President Joe Biden came second in the Democratic primaries, in a vote hailed as “groundbreaking”.

 

 Activist Natalia Latif tapes a 'Vote Uncommitted' sign on the speaker's podium during a primary election night gathering in Dearborn, Michigan, on February 27 [Rebecca Cook/Reuters]

Most Democratic voters in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn chose “uncommitted” over the incumbent, as part of an organised effort to denounce his “unwavering” support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

And it wasn’t just Dearborn. Initial results, released early on Wednesday, reveal that more than 101,000 people across the state joined the protest campaign at the ballot box.

Advocates said the numbers serve as an enormous rebuke to Washington’s backing of Israel, not to mention a warning sign for Democrats heading into the general election in November.

“It’s huge,” Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf said of the “uncommitted” tally.

But Arraf, who is based in the Detroit area, said Tuesday’s 101,000 votes do not fully convey the growing frustration at Biden’s policies.

She pointed out that some voters opted to cast their ballots for other candidates also to display displeasure with the incumbent president. Both Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, who challenged Biden for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, have previously called for a ceasefire.

Phillips won 20,000 votes while Williamson, who dropped out of the race ahead of Tuesday’s voting, received more than 22,000. In the aftermath of the state primary, Williamson has announced she would relaunch her campaign.

Arraf added that many people chose not to participate in the process altogether. She explained that the “uncommitted” campaign was working with limited resources and started only a few weeks before the election.

“Tuesday’s showing of no confidence in Biden, anger with Biden and people’s willingness to use their vote to express that extreme discontent should have the Biden team and all Democrats very, very worried,” she told Al Jazeera.

One of the groups behind the effort to vote “uncommitted”, the Listen to Michigan campaign, celebrated the results in a social media post.

“Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations,” it wrote.

The group promised to continue the pressure at least until the Democratic National Convention in August when the party will officially choose its candidate after the individual state primaries and caucuses. It has not, however, released an announcement about its stance on the general election — and whether it will encourage voters to boycott Biden then.

‘Historic’ vote

The adage of “every vote counts” rings especially true in Michigan.

That’s because in November’s general election, presidential candidates compete in individual state contests for Electoral College votes. Those Electoral College votes then decide who wins the White House.

In recent general elections, the victor has come down to just a handful of key “swing states”, which can tilt either Republican or Democrat.

Michigan, home to more than 10 million people, is one such state. It is often won by small margins.

For instance, in 2016, former President Donald Trump beat his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes. The state was crucial to putting Trump in the White House.

In 2020, Biden beat Trump by about 150,000 votes in Michigan — roughly equal to the number of voters who did not support Biden in this primary election. Recent polls have shown an even tighter general election race in the likely event of a rematch between Biden and Trump.

The electoral math, according to Sally Howell, an assistant professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn, means the Biden campaign “has to be concerned about Michigan”.

Howell said the significance of Tuesday’s vote cannot be understated with the Arab American and Muslim voters in the state showing their electoral leverage despite representing a relatively small proportion of overall voters.

The Arab American community makes up about 2 percent of the electorate in Michigan, she explained. Together with the Muslim electorate, which overlaps with the Arab American community, they represent about 3 percent.

“I think it’s historic,” she told Al Jazeera. “And for Arab American political participation, it’s really groundbreaking. I don’t think they’ve ever gotten the attention of a presidential campaign like they have it now.”

‘Not over yet’

In Arab American- and Muslim-dominated areas like Dearborn, the story is in the numbers.

For instance, in Hamtramck, a Detroit-area town that is believed to be the only Muslim-majority city in the country, the ballot category “uncommitted” received 61 percent of the votes, compared with 32 percent for Biden.

But even in areas with no significant Arab and Muslim presence, the uncommitted campaign made a strong showing, underscoring that the movement has extended beyond individual communities.

For example, in Washtenaw County west of Detroit — a liberal stronghold that is home to the main campus of the University of Michigan — 17 percent of Democrats voted uncommitted.

Overall, 13.3 percent of voters cast “uncommitted” ballots in Tuesday’s state primary with nearly all votes counted, far outpacing the Arab American and Muslim representation in the state.

Howell explained those results offer a forecast for other state races, particularly as Super Tuesday — the day with the most state primary contests — approaches next week.

“It’s also not over yet,” Howell said. “There are other swing states with an Arab American community or a Muslim American community or an African-American community that is in solidarity with Palestinians or a young, educated population.”

“All of these groups are going to have paid attention to what’s happening in Michigan.”

Advocates in nearby Minnesota, which has a large Muslim and Somali American population, have already upped their efforts to urge residents to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s Super Tuesday primary.

The Michigan campaign “has just shown us that we CAN alter the course of Biden’s actions with added pressure”, Asma Nizami, an advocacy director at the Minnesota-based organisation Reviving Sisterhood, wrote in a post on social media.

Still, what happens next remains unclear with some “uncommitted” voters saying a policy pivot from Biden could still win their vote.

Others, including those who have rallied behind the Abandon Biden campaign, have said the administration cannot undo the damage already done.

Palestinian-American comedian and organiser Amer Zahr was among those calling for continued efforts to deny Biden a second term. He described Michigan’s vote as a “true rejection of Biden’s disastrous policies of support for the genocide in Gaza”.

“Now, the work continues. We must stay the course of denying Biden our votes. For the martyrs in Gaza. For our dignity. Otherwise, we turn into Ted Cruz, and nothing matters,” he told Al Jazeera in a statement, referring to the Republican senator who endorsed Trump even after he insulted Cruz’s wife.

Congressional Progressive Caucus chairperson Pramila Jayapal, speaking to CNN on Tuesday, said Michigan’s results showed there has to be a “dramatic policy and rhetorical shift from the president on this issue and a new strategy to rebuild a real partnership with progressives in multiple communities who are absolutely key to winning the election”.

For his part, Biden did not mention the “uncommitted” movement or the Israel-Gaza war in a statement hailing the more than 618,000 votes cast in his favour in Michigan.

Instead he thanked the influential United Auto Workers union, which has called for a ceasefire while still endorsing Biden. He also pledged to boost the state’s auto industry, repair crumbling infrastructure and support working families.

“This fight for our freedom, for working families, and for Democracy is going to take all of us coming together,” he said in a statement. “I know we will.”

Biden’s approach appears to align with an argument made by some Democrat-aligned commentators who believe the war in Gaza will be a non-issue in November. They maintain the US news cycle will have moved on by then.

But Palestinian rights advocates said the Michigan vote should be a warning to Democrats not to assume that voters have a short memory. Human rights, they argued, are a central issue to many and the scale of the Gaza war has evoked warnings of “genocide”, including from United Nations experts.

“It’s energising and a success story of a deeper conscience across communities — Arab, Jewish, Black, white, politically involved and apolitical,” Adham Kassem, an Arab American activist, said of the vote.

‘Voters are not stupid’

Advocates contended that Biden’s unequivocal support for Israel, coupled with his questioning of the death toll in Gaza, has left a mark for many voters that will not soon wash away.

Early in the conflict, Biden asked Congress to approve $14bn in additional aid to Israel, a request that legislators are still working to fulfill.

On Tuesday, as people in Michigan were voting “uncommitted”, Biden met with congressional leaders to push the foreign aid bill that includes the additional Israel assistance. The measure would also ban funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an aid group.

His administration vetoed a ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council for the third time last week.

That is why a recent softening in tone from the Biden administration has rung hollow for many, according to Arraf.

Biden and his officials have recently called on Israel to minimise civilian harm in Gaza and acknowledge the “unimaginable pain and loss” of Palestinians — but Arraf warns this could come across as “doublespeak” because the administration continues to back the Gaza war.

“Voters are not stupid, and, therefore, this kind of rhetoric is further insulting,” she told Al Jazeera.

Kassem added, “Every one of these uncommitted votes is someone who took time off their day to vote against what we’ve all watched — a depraved indifference to life by an administration that’s hoping time will forgive.”

“It doesn’t, and these voters won’t forget.”

 

US Voters Support Permanent Ceasefire in Gaza

Julia Conley

In the latest sign that the Biden administration’s continued defense and support of Israel’s assault on Gaza leaves it representing a shrinking minority of Americans, a new poll out Tuesday found that 67 percent of Americans of all political affiliations want the United States to join the international call for a permanent ceasefire.

 

 Christmas Eve ceasefire vigil outside the White House on Dec. 24, 2023. (Elvert Barnes, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

That’s up six points from progressive think tank Data for Progress’s last poll, taken in November.

Support for a ceasefire among Democratic voters remains strong, with 77 percent saying U.S. President Joe Biden should demand a permanent cessation of hostilities and a de-escalation in violence. Sixty-nine percent of Independents said the same, up from 61 percent in December, as well as 56 percent of Republicans, up from 49 percent.

Both Democrats and Independents were far more likely to disagree with the idea that the U.S. should wait until Hamas is defeated to call for a ceasefire.

Since October, Israel has killed at least 29,878 Palestinians, including more than 11,500 children. A near-total blockade on humanitarian aid has pushed about a quarter of the enclave’s population to “the edge of famine,” according to U.N. humanitarian affairs chief Ramesh Rajasingham.

Biden said Monday that he is hopeful for a ceasefire “by next Monday,” but current talks between Hamas and Israel, which are being mediated by Qatar, are reportedly about a temporary cessation in violence.

In an interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers, the president also reiterated his belief that “were there no Israel, there’s not a Jew in the world that’d be safe,” suggesting continued support for the Israeli government and drawing backlash from progressives on social media.

In the latest Data for Progress poll, large majorities of voters also supported various actions the U.S. could take to condition aid to Israel, including guaranteeing Palestinians’ right to return to their homes in Gaza (71 percent), committing to peace talks for a two-state solution (68 percent), and pledging to stop building settlements in the West Bank (63 percent).

Democratic leaders and the corporate press have continued to characterize the issue of the war in Gaza as “divisive” despite polls consistently showing that a majority of Americans and Democrats support a cease-fire.

“Not a single poll shows less than 70 percent of Democratic voters support a ceasefire,” said former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner last week after Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the issue divisive. “Democratic voters are not divided.”

 

Michigan Voters Send Biden Powerful Rebuke, With 13 Percent Voting “Uncommitted”

Sharon Zhang

Over 100,000 voters in Michigan’s Democratic primary voted “uncommitted” on Tuesday, garnering roughly one vote for every six that went to Joe Biden in a powerful rebuke to the president and his support of Israel’s genocide of Gaza.

 

Abbas Alawieh, spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, a group who asked voters to vote uncommitted instead of for President Joe Biden in Michigan's Presidential primary election, looks at election results during a watch party in Dearborn, Michigan, on February 27, 2024.

Jeff Kowalsky / AFP via Getty Images

With over 95 percent of votes counted as of Wednesday morning, “uncommitted” received 13.3 percent of the ballot, with over 101,000 votes. Biden received 81.1 percent support, with 618,000 votes, while other candidates received about 5.7 percent combined.

In Wayne County, home to Dearborn, which boasts one of the largest concentrations of Arab and Muslim people in the country, “uncommitted” received 17 percent of the vote, while Biden got 78 percent. In the 12th congressional district, which encompasses Dearborn and parts of Detroit and is represented by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D), “uncommitted” similarly garnered 17 percent support.

If these results hold, this means that “uncommitted” will have earned the right to delegates at the Democratic National Convention, with Michigan’s primary rules stipulating that a candidate must get at least 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district to qualify.

“Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations. Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza,” wrote Listen to Michigan, the campaign run by anti-Zionist advocates behind the “uncommitted” campaign.

“President Biden has funded the bombs falling on the family members of people who live right here in Michigan. People who voted for him, who now feel completely betrayed,” the group said. “President Biden, listen to Michigan. Count us out, Joe.”

Those who feel betrayed by Biden for his support of the genocide include Palestinian Americans who have watched Biden circumvent Congress to send weapons to Israel to continue the assault that has killed dozens of their family members; Muslim and Arab Americans who feel that Biden has turned his back on their communities; and allies to the cause who simply can’t stomach voting for a man who is complicit in genocide.

Muslim voters in particular voted overwhelmingly against Biden. An exit poll by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and CAIR-Michigan of 527 Muslim voters found that a whopping 94 percent of them voted “uncommitted.”

The huge proportion of protest votes against Biden sends a powerful message to the Biden campaign. Biden won Michigan in 2020 by roughly 150,000 votes. Since then, his approval has plummeted, with voters upset over his handling of Gaza as well as the economy and his far right approach to immigration at the southern border.

Advocates for the “uncommitted” campaign have warned Biden that the Michigan presidential results will look more like 2016, when Donald Trump prevailed over Hillary Clinton, than 2020 if he continues on this path with his support of Israel. Indeed, in 2016, Hillary lost by a margin of only about 10,000 votes — 10 times smaller than the amount of votes that “uncommitted” received on Tuesday.

“We are no longer in a position to beg Democrats to listen to us,” Gabriela Santiago-Romero, Detroit City Council Member and Listen to Michigan supporter, told The New York Times. “Quite frankly, none of us want Trump to win, which is exactly why we’re doing this. This is the only way we can raise a flag to Democrats that you are going to lose unless you call for an ultimate ceasefire.”

Indeed, reports have found that the Biden campaign is getting the message. Politico reported this week that sources say the campaign is “freaking out about the uncommitted vote” and that there is panic over the pro-Palestine revolt. This is part of what inspired Biden to make an announcement about a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday, even though Israeli and Palestinian officials were surprised by the remark.

 

Michigan Rebukes Biden on Gaza Genocide with Arab and Muslim American “Uncommitted” Vote

Juan Cole

 

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Michigan rebuked President Joe Biden on Tuesday for his unstinting support of the extremist Israeli government’s total war against Gaza. A movement for voting “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary in that state has been led by Arab American and Muslim American activists in Wayne County and the city of Dearborn. According to Elena Moore at NPR, tens of thousands voted “uncommitted.” If 15% do so, they would get a delegate at the Chicago convention this summer. In any case, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are pledging to go to the Chicago conference to make their voices heard.

The effort was not only joined by Americans of MENA (Middle East and North African) heritage but by youth voters and some members of other minorities.

NPR notes, “As of 2020, there were over 200,000 registered voters in Michigan who identified as Muslim, and over 300,000 Michiganders identify as Middle Eastern or North African, according to data from the U.S. Census.”

Biden’s campaign thought it would be a good idea to put him on Late Night with Seth Meyers, apparently to appeal to the youth vote. Meyers, however, does less well with the youth audience (the “key demographic”) than any of the three late night shows that precede his, helmed by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.

It was not a pretty picture. Biden thought it would be a good idea to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian refugees from Rafah in preparation for yet another Israel ground operation, planned apparently for April after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Biden’s main concern with the slaughter of innocents in Gaza seemed to be that it would cost Israel support in Europe and around the world, not that 12,450 children have had their lives snuffed out by what Biden admits has been indiscriminate Israeli bombing. There was no emotion in the man, no drop of the milk of human kindness. He bought the false narrative that this destruction of most of the buildings in Gaza, including schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, community centers, and residential apartment buildings was necessary because Hamas was using civilians as a shield. The rate of death among innocent noncombatants in Gaza has exceeded that of any war fought in this century. The Israeli war plan is that of amoral monsters, which is not surprising given that the corrupt Netanyahu brought full blown fascists into his government.

If a terrorist group was operating in Tel Aviv, would anyone in the US or Europe think the logical response was to destroy Tel Aviv?

Then he again delivered himself of his announcement that he is a Zionist and that without Israel, no Jew in the world would be safe.

There are so many things wrong with this wretched sentiment. First of all, the 6.3 million Jews in the United States ought to be assured of their safety by the President of the United States, not by a foreign country. Second, Israel’s militant policies detract from everyone’s safety, including that of Jews.

But third, if it is true that the world’s 15.7 million Jews need a state to safeguard them, then surely the world’s 14.3 million Palestinians deserve a state to keep them safe. But they don’t have one. Of the 14.3 million, some 6 million in the occupied territories and Lebanon have no citizenship at all — they are stateless, without the right to have rights. Even those with citizenship rights in Israel and Jordan are second-class citizens.

Biden has given billions of dollars to Israel on his theory that it is necessary to the security of Jews, including apparently American Jews. But he has done no more than pay useless lip service to the achievement of a Palestinian state. His State Department’s main project in the Middle East has been to entice Saudi Arabia to join Jared Kushner’s “Abraham Accords,” which completely marginalizes the Palestinians.

In fact, when the Israeli parliament voted last week to never, ever allow a Palestinian state, Biden was completely silent on it.

In its Middle East policy, the Biden administration has been Trump 2.0, from the continuation of the economic and financial blockade on Iran to the “Abraham” scam.

You understand how MENA Americans find it difficult to vote for this. The argument that Trump is worse is true and most of them would admit it. But voting is an intimate, personal, act wrought up in a person’s identity, and you can’t expect people who view someone as a genocidaire to vote for that individual– in their eyes they’d be complicit.

There is an argument that Biden has been an unexpectedly effective domestic president, with good economic performance and advances in green energy. That is also true. But if you’ve lived the Gaza genocide with video on social media for nearly 5 months, it throws those things into the shade. A man who would permit that butchery just isn’t a good man.

Some are already blaming MENA Americans for a potential Biden loss and a return of Trump to the White House. That is ridiculous. Over a third of Americans don’t even bother to vote in presidential elections. In 2020, the World Population Review notes, “the number of eligible voters in the US was over 231 million people. Of these, approximately 168 million registered to vote, and 154 million actually cast a vote in the 2020 presidential election.”

So instead of blaming 4 million Muslim Americans, maybe Democrats should try to get some of those 63 million unregistered Americans registered and bring them, and the 14 million non-voting registered voters to the polls with policies that someone might be enthusiastic about rather than policies that make you want to throw up every morning when you see the news.

 

Michigan's Primary Must Be Wake-Up Call for Biden on Gaza

Sam Rosenthal

 People hug at the Listen to Michigan watch party, a group who asked voters to vote "uncommitted" instead of for US President Joe Biden in Michigan's US Presidential primary election, during election night in Dearborn, Michigan on February 27, 2024.

(Photo by Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

Up until Tuesday’s presidential primary in Michigan, President Joe Biden has met little electoral resistance as he rolls towards renomination as the Democrats’ candidate for president. This is partly to do with Biden-friendly changes the Democratic National Committee made in this year’s primary calendar, but also reflects an unwillingness by members of Biden’s own party to attempt to question his renomination, even amidst ominous signs for Biden’s reelection.

That may have changed Tuesday night after a grassroots movement encouraging voters to cast an “uncommitted” ballot in Michigan’s presidential primary startled Biden and his team. The campaign to vote uncommitted, dubbed “Listen to Michigan,” had asked voters to voice their displeasure with Biden’s support for the ongoing carnage in Gaza by voting uncommitted. After months of downplaying the extent of the discontent among rank-and-file Democratic voters over Biden’s obeisance towards Israel’s murderous campaign in Gaza, the president and his team will be hard pressed to ignore this protest vote. And, the stunning erosion of support among constituencies that ardently supported Biden in this critical swing state in 2020 should renew calls for the Democratic Party to take a hard look at the viability of Biden’s candidacy.

With 98.5% of the vote counted, the 100,960 votes cast “uncommitted” in Tuesday’s primary far outstrip the 10,704 votes by which Donald Trump won the state in 2016, and come within striking distance of the total margin that Biden ran up against Trump in 2020. That election saw record-high turnout across the U.S., as progressives, people of color, and young people turned out in droves to unseat Trump. Most prognosticators agree that we are unlikely to see that level of voting this year.

If even a significant percentage of the primary electorate that voted uncommitted in Michigan either does not vote, votes third party, or, God forbid, chooses Trump over Biden in November, then Biden will surely lose the state. If Biden loses Michigan, as Hillary Clinton lost it to Trump in 2016, his path to electoral victory becomes exceedingly difficult. In that scenario, he would probably have to take four of five remaining swing states: Arizona (where he currently trails in polling by about three points); Georgia (he is behind there by an average of seven points); Nevada (Biden trails by seven points there, too); Pennsylvania (where Trump clings to a one-point margin); and Wisconsin (where Biden is behind by two points). This is not to say that the task is impossible — many of these differentials are within the margin of polling error — but, taken together, the calculus for Biden looks incredibly grim.

Simply put, Biden needs to come up with votes, and quickly, at a time when he only seems to be capable of losing them. His administration’s unflinching support for Israel’s scorched earth campaign in Gaza has alienated core constituencies that Biden needed to win in 2020. Despite that, Biden and company appear paralyzed by an inability to abandon Democratic Party orthodoxy around its support for Israel and adopt a more even-handed policy. The administration is incapable of even allowing the UN to pass an overwhelmingly popular ceasefire resolution.

“We cannot win Michigan with status quo policy,” four-term Democrat congressman Ro Khanna said after meeting with students, Arab-Americans, and progressive voters in Michigan last week. “Every day that goes by where we’re seeing the bombing of women and children on social media or cable news is not a good day for our party,” he told the New York Times. A change in policy is needed within “a matter of weeks, not months.” he added.

Filmmaker and Michigan native Michael Moore agreed that Biden’s stance on the ongoing slaughter in Gaza could easily cost him the state, and in turn, the entire election. In a recent interview with CNN’s Abby Phillip, Moore said “I’ve been saying this month that he’s going to cost himself the election. …If Trump has any chance, it’s the decision that [Biden’s] made to embrace slaughter, carpet bombing, babies in incubators dead because they cut off the electricity, on and on and on.”

In vain, Team Biden seems focused on “moderate” voters to shore up his electoral deficiencies. We have seen this playbook before: in 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton pursued presumably disaffected Republican voters, assuming that progressive activists inside the Democratic Party would eventually support her in the general election. This led the campaign to ignore Democratic core constituencies like union members, community-based organizations, and college campuses in swing states and instead campaign far afield in states that were not realistically within reach. The Clinton campaign also failed to create a coherent policy message, choosing instead to focus on Trump’s invective as the counterpoint to Clinton’s business-as-usual approach.

Biden clearly intends to use the Trump foil as his major argument for re-election, with a bit of center-leaning policy sprinkled in. Unfortunately for Biden, majorities of voters now trust Trump more on issues that appear near the top of the list of what voters say are most important to them in 2024: immigration and the economy. While Biden works to prove his bona fides as a border hawk, alienating immigration activists, voters already believe Trump is vastly more effective than Biden when it comes to issues of border security. With these efforts unlikely to produce enough votes to help Biden win the requisite swing states, the campaign is still displaying an alarming disregard towards the obvious signs of discontent within the Democratic Party.

After Tuesday’s wake-up call, it appears probable that the Democrats have just two remaining paths to victory in 2024: the Biden administration can make a 180-degree turn, join the rest of the UN in opposing Israel’s assault on Gaza, and try their damnedest to broker a lasting peace there. If the administration is incapable of doing that, the Democrats must look for a different candidate for the top of the ticket. Anything else would be political malpractice, and likely to hand Trump the election in November.