Mike E in Michigan assesses the movement to cast “uncommitted” votes in the Democratic Primary, putting Biden and his wholesale backing of Israel’s genocide in Palestine on notice.
The morning of Michigan’s primary elections, I received a text from the Biden campaign, which had somehow gotten hold of my phone number. “Voting ‘uncommitted’ only helps Donald Trump” it read. This represents a new step in the gaslighting of left-wing voters by the Democratic establishment: first, voting Green was “helping Trump;” then voting for Bernie Sanders was “helping Trump;” now voting for nobody at all is “helping Trump.” Clearly the Biden campaign was scared, but why?
A coalition of pro-Palestinian groups and activists were calling for a vote for “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary to protest Biden’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The target was 10,000 votes — the margin by which Trump won in 2016, when Michigan was a key swing state. Nobody expects many pro-Palestinian voters to support Trump, given his history of Islamophobia and support for Israel. But it would not take many voters staying at home in disgust to lose Biden the state — and maybe the election.
The next day, it was clear that the “uncommitted” campaign had spectacularly exceeded its target. 10,000 votes? Make that 100,000! The media was forced to take notice; even the French news channel France 24 had the Michigan primary as one of its lead stories. Many commentators credited the result to Michigan’s relatively large Arab and Muslim population. But fewer than 3% of Michiganders are Arab-American, and around 2.5% Muslim, while over 13% of voters supported “uncommitted.”
Did this have any impact, however? It was essentially a symbolic protest vote which will have little effect on the Democratic National Convention in August (only two out of the state’s 117 delegates will be “uncommitted.”) But, as we have seen, it scared the Democratic establishment enough to focus its campaign on Michigan (which is more than they did in 2016). After months of the administration refusing to say the word “ceasefire,” Kamala Harris called for just that only days after the primary. Of course, her idea of “ceasefire” is a temporary pause in the killing, and even that looks unlikely to happen. But it reflected the party’s fear of losing the support of its base over Gaza.
More significantly, the Michigan vote has given momentum to the campaign. On “Super Tuesday” the following week, in Minnesota 19% voted “uncommitted,” while “no preference” received about 12% of votes in North Carolina, and over 9% in Massachusetts. As in Michigan, the protest vote was much larger than the percentage of Arab-Americans (0.2% in Minnesota; 1% in Massachusetts) or Muslims (2% in both states). On Wednesday, March 6 “uncommitted” received 29.1% of the vote in Hawaii. The genocide in Gaza was again the major issue, even with the low percentage of Arab voters, but anger over class issues highlighted by the Maui wildfire may have also played a part.
The “uncommitted” movement has spread to the primaries in Georgia and Wisconsin — both battleground states like Michigan. It is also on the ballot in 14 other upcoming Democratic primary races. Significantly, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Washington state’s largest union, is calling for an “uncommitted” vote there on March 12. It remains to be seen whether this momentum will shift the Democratic Party or create a mass campaign in solidarity with Palestine. The organizers of the “uncommitted” campaign deliberately presented it as a chance to cast a protest vote without supporting an alternative candidate to Biden. In tactical and electoral terms, this was a smart move, as it undercut the “a vote for ‘uncommitted’ is a vote for Trump” argument.
However, it has limitations as a longer-term strategy, as it feeds back into electoral politics within the Democratic Party. For example, the Michigan vote led the fringe candidate Marianne Williamson to “unsuspend” her campaign. Socialists are critical of working within the Democratic Party, but at least figures such as Bernie Sanders and AOC identify as socialists, and have some kind of supporter base, whereas Williamson is, frankly, irrelevant; her vote actually went down in some states after her “unsuspension.”
The primary vote shows that there is potential for a popular campaign against the war in Gaza. “Uncommitted” votes of around 10-20% may not sound much, but they are enough for a critical mass to take the movement forward. After all, in 1965 only a quarter of Americans opposed sending troops to Vietnam, yet by the end of the decade mass protest had helped to end the war. Crucially, the movement took on the Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson and his party, most famously in the riots outside the party convention in Chicago.
We need something similar today. We need a campaign that transcends the limitations of the Democratic Party and electoralism on the one hand, and the sectarianism of much of the US “anti-war” left on the other. And if anyone wants ideas for a time and place to protest, may I suggest this year’s Democratic National Convention? — in Chicago.
Mike E
Marx21 US 