Large numbers of Democratic primary voters are rejecting Joe Biden over Israels murderous war on Gaza. The president risks undermining any moral argument for his reelection in November.
Last Tuesday, it was rainy and unseasonably cold in New York. I came home from work, changed out of my wet socks and headed back out into the grim weather to my voting spot. When I got there, an ebulliently helpful poll worker offered me a pen. I didnt need it. Thats because I voted for no one, leaving my ballot blank. I wanted to join people all over the country in sending President Joe Biden a message: stop the genocide in Gaza. I was not alone in trekking out into the inhospitable climate to vote for nobody that day. Roughly thirty-nine thousand New York State voters did the same, about 12 percent of primary voters. Blank accounted for about a quarter of Brooklyns primary votes. About 11 percent of Connecticuts primary voters voted uncommitted, as did an impressive 14.5 percent of Rhode islands (almost 30 percent in Providence). On the same day, 48,162 people 8 percent of primary voters in Wisconsin joined us, voting uninstructed, which implies that delegates arent obliged to vote for anyone in particular (we dont have that option in New York, hence the blank ballots). Wisconsins results were even more significant since, unlike New York and Rhode Island, Wisconsin is a battleground state. As my Jacobin colleague Ben Burgis has written, the campaign organizers in Wisconsin had set a goal of getting twenty-three thousand uncommitted votes, to exceed the margins by which Biden had beaten Donald Trump in Wisconsin in 2020, and by which Hillary Clinton had lost to Trump in that state in 2016. The outcome, then, exceeded the goal twice over. All over the country, this uncommitted campaign has been organized by pro-Palestinian, antiwar groups, including Muslim and Palestinian organizations, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The results so far reflect a remarkable amount of organizing in a very short time and the widespread anger among registered Democratic voters over Bidens awful complicity in the Gaza genocide. The campaign started in Arab American communities in the swing state of Michigan, with one hundred thousand uncommitted votes in that states primary on February 17, 13 percent of primary voters. Last month, the momentum continued, with 19 percent of Minnesota primary voters marking their ballots uncommitted and a whopping 29.1 percent of Hawaii primary voters.
Now more than half a million Democratic primary voters have cast a vote most of which, we can assume, were cast against Bidens war and in solidarity with the people of Gaza. As John Nichols of the Nation has reported, that means that so far, twenty-five Democratic convention delegates are uncommitted. The campaigns continue, targeting voters in the remaining primaries. There are already signs that this ongoing avalanche of protest votes combined with Israels shocking attack on World Central Kitchen aid workers last week is having an effect on the president and his circle. On Thursday, after weeks of pathetic bleatings of distress over civilian casualties that have not been matched with concrete action to stop the war, Biden made his strongest plea to Benjamin Netanyahu yet, threatening, in a phone call with the Israeli prime minister, to condition future aid to Israel on steps to reduce civilian harm and on allowing humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.