Democratic donors are urging President Biden to see recent presidential primary results, like in Michigan where more than 100,000 voters abandoned him and marked “uncommitted” on their ballots, as a “warning sign” and a “wake-up call.”
“Regardless of how you dissect the specific math and historical comparisons (2012, 2016) of what happened in Michigan, 100,000 uncommitted Democratic voters must be seen as a wake-up call,” wrote Way to Win, a national hub of progressive donors, in a memo to its members and supporters. “We can tell you that the energy behind ‘uncommitted’ is not something that should be ignored, taken lightly, or dismissed.”
It added: “We should not try to argue ourselves out of the fact that Michigan is a major warning signal that something needs to change.”
In the Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, the state’s Arab American population urged voters to “Abandon Biden” and vote “uncommitted” on primary ballots in protest of Biden’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza. Biden won 81% of the state, losing approximately 101,000 to the protest vote.
‘UNCOMMITTED’ PROTEST VOTE AGAINST BIDEN DRAWS TENS OF THOUSANDS ON SUPER TUESDAY
In the memo, Way to Win cautioned that 2024 was lining up to be a repeat of 2016, when then-candidate Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic primary to Bernie Sanders but felt the state would still vote blue in the general election. It didn’t and Trump went on to win Michigan by just under 11,000 votes.
“Michigan 2024 is not an anomaly, just as Michigan 2016 was not,” the group wrote, adding that potential voters are hesitant to support Biden because they feel “disenchanted, disaffected and demobilized.”
The protest extended to Super Tuesday as well.
Despite nearly sweeping every contest on Super Tuesday, Biden again saw a chunk of Democratic voters refuse to put his name down in states like Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina and Tennessee.
In North Carolina, the Biden campaign saw a whopping 88,000 voters, or nearly 13% of the total, back “No Preference.”
In Massachusetts, a sizable 54,000 voters, or just under 10%, marked “No Preference.”
In Colorado, just over 43,000 voters, or roughly 8% of the vote, marked “Noncommitted Delegate” on the ballot, instead of putting down the president’s name.
In Tennessee, Alabama and Iowa, Biden lost approximately 8%, 6% and 4%, respectively, to “uncommitted.”
In these states, the non-declared option was usually the second most chosen.
Way to Win added: “And beyond our volunteers and activists, there is a real and present danger that too many voters in close swing states who are fed up with the system will choose to either not vote at all, vote but skip the presidential ballot, or vote for third-party presidential candidates. We are seeing this everywhere in the data.”
The memo suggests Biden should directly address the concerns of those protesting him and “change course on Gaza,” elevate Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign trail, and emphasize the need for Democrats to go out and vote.
