Biden campaign denies ‘panic’ over Michigan’s ‘uncommitted’ voters

President Joe Biden’s campaign insists there are no concerns despite more than 101,000 voters in Michigan’s presidential primary election casting their ballots for ‘uncommitted’ instead of for the president. Biden’s reelection team is now walking a fine line in the primary – acknowledging concerns of frustrated Democratic voters regarding the war in Gaza, but denying that the results of Michigan’s primary is prompting panic for the campaign. ‘Any reporting that we’re panicked or deeply concerned would be wrong,’ a campaign official told CNN Wednesday morning.

With 99 percent of the vote reported in Michigan, ‘uncommitted’ received 101,067 votes compared to the 618,115 cast for Biden. In Dearborn, Michigan – an outskirt of Detroit – Biden was defeated by the protest ballot as Palestinian-American progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) promoted voting against the president. Many political talking heads have noted the significant number of uncommitted votes cast in Michigan’s Democratic primary race. But Biden’s campaign insists that the number of voters who came out is positive for 2024.

‘High turnout was very good for us,’ a member of Biden’s team said, according to CNN. The official noted that nearly 620,000 voters who showed up to cast their ballots for Biden in a ‘non-competitive primary’. ‘Shows a lot of president’s base is with him,’ they added. Biden released a statement Tuesday night that did not directly address the ‘vote uncommitted’ campaign but did touch on the activists protesting his backing of Israel.

‘We understand that it’s an emotional, painful, difficult situation for a lot of people,’ the statement noted. ‘President Biden shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence and a just and lasting peace.’ More than 100,000 voters in the battleground state of Michigan voted in protest against Biden’s stance on Israel’s conflict as of Wednesday morning’s ballot count. In Dearborn – where more than 90 percent of the population is Arab American – 56 percent voted for uncommitted compared to the 40 percent who voted for Biden.

Biden easily won the Michigan primary on Tuesday by taking more than 80 percent of the overall vote. But the uncommitted ballot option took five times higher the voter turnout than the protest vote against Barack Obama in 2012. It’s a sign that the Biden campaign could see consequences in the state with 15 electoral college votes if the situation in the Middle East remains unstable. If the 2024 election comes down to the result in Michigan, how Dearborn and the rest of the Arab-American community votes could be key to determining the winner. The district of Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) includes Dearborn.

She helped push the effort for Arabs and pro-Palestine voters to cast their primary ballots for ‘uncommitted’ to protest Biden’s policies in Gaza and his continued support for Israel. On the Republican side, Donald Trump won his fifth primary contest of the 2024 race by defeating Nikki Haley 65 percent to 30.9 percent as of late Tuesday night. Notably, nearly 140,000 more voters showed up to cast their ballots for Trump in the Republican primary than the Democrats who showed up to vote for Biden – another sign that the November general election could be swayed by those on the left who refuse to vote for the incumbent.

Uncommitted supporters celebrated and declared victory for the movement at a Dearborn Election Night watch party on Tuesday. ‘It is my hope that after tonight’s results… we’re going to be at the Democratic National Convention, pushing and growing this antiwar movement,’ said Michigan state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, the majority leader of the State House. Some Democrats, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, warned the progressive arm of the party that voting against Biden is essentially casting a ballot for Trump.

The Michigan Democratic Party requires candidates to earn 15 percent of the vote statewide or within individual congressional districts to be able to send delegates to the nominating convention over the summer. The thousands of votes for ‘uncommitted’ were a warning sign for the president over the war in Gaza. In a show of restraint, Biden’s statement on the results thanked ‘every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great.’

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