Joe Biden won the Michigan primary on Tuesday as the “uncommitted” push was gaining thousands of votes in a warning sign to the president about the war in Gaza.
Biden was leading with nearly 80 percent of the vote in early voting Tuesday night. But “uncommitted” was 15 percent, with more than 25,000 votes and counting. That was more than a bar that activists had set for themselves. This came with about 16 percent of the vote.
The Associated Press called the race for Biden immediately after the final polls closed at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Biden faced token opposition on the ticket from Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, but his real battle has been against the “uncommitted” and against himself. Biden faced scrutiny in the state for his handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and many Arab American voters in Dearborn and other parts of Detroit have been expressing anger over the war.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a member of the squad, who is Palestinian-American, has been criticizing Biden and pushing for the “uncommitted” effort.
A group of activists organizing a campaign for the “uncommitted” treated the results as cause for a victory rally Tuesday night, filling the Adonis restaurant next to the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn that featured food, music and proclamations of victory, along with statements about the growing number of victims of the war in Gaza.
‘Here in southeast Michigan, people in our Arab American community are having a terrible experience. “Many of us have survived U.S.-funded bombs,” “Listen to Michigan” co-organizer Abbass Alawieh said at a post-election rally that “uncommitted” supporters treated as a victory rally.
‘That’s all we’re asking for. Just stop killing our families. Actually, it’s not that complicated. Just stop killing our families, President Biden. You can do it,’ he said.
Layla Elabed, another organizer, said volunteers made 1 million calls to voters as part of the effort.
There was little doubt that President Biden would win the Democratic primary in Michigan. Activists have been pushing for a vote “not committed” to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Rashida Tlaib’s sister Elabed called on Biden to “establish a permanent ceasefire and end unconditional, unchecked military aid that is financing a genocide in 2024,” she told her “uncommitted” supporters as the votes came in. .
He said activists were telling the U.S. government “that funding endless wars is not the way, but there is a better way that saves the children who are being murdered… That returns the hostages and prisoners.” “There is a better path of diplomacy and peace and not genocide.”
‘This is not a messaging problem. This has become a bomb problem,” she said. “Listen to Michigan organizer Lexis Zeidan.
“We have a big victory tonight,” former Rep. Andy Levin told the crowd. “Tonight is a victory for American democracy,” he added.
‘Our message to the president is clear. There is no time to lose. We need a permanent ceasefire right now,” he said.
“It is not lost on me that this president has softened his language and begun to acknowledge Palestinian suffering,” said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. ‘But what is not enough is paying lip service. What we need is a complete withdrawal of support for the most radical and tyrannical government in the history of Israel.’
“Today I was proud to go in and take out a Democratic ballot and vote without compromising,” Tlaib said in a video posted Tuesday afternoon.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) voted for the “uncommitted” instead of President Joe Biden, while accusing the United States of aiding “genocide” against the Palestinians. She posted a video after voting.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud criticized Biden for commenting Monday on the latest ceasefire talks while the president was eating an ice cream cone.
“I’m not looking for words or words. “I’m looking for action,” she told DailyMail.com outside a polling place.
Khalid Turaani, co-founder of the ‘Leave Biden’ movement, predicted that thousands of people would vote ‘uncommitted’.
“I think it’s strange to me that you’re eating ice cream in a saloon; that’s the time you’re talking about a ceasefire,” said Dearborn, Michigan, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.
President Joe Biden discussed talks for a temporary ceasefire while grabbing ice cream with ‘Late Night’ host Seth Meyers in New York on Monday.
Biden faced demands for a permanent ceasefire and a push to vote for the ‘uncommitted’
Dearborn has a high percentage of Arab American and Muslim voters.
“I think 10,000 is reasonable and I think we’ll get there,” he told DailyMail.com as he handed out sample ballots that said “uncommitted.”
Of the first six people he spoke to, in English and Arabic, outside a polling station, “only one person did not say that he was not going to vote without committing himself.” She didn’t talk much.
Ten thousand is roughly the number by which Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020, in a demonstration of the influence Arab American voters could have in the November elections.
It is the number that the activist group ‘Listen to Michigan’ has identified as a target.
But “uncommitted” has racked up bigger numbers in the recent Democratic presidential primaries.
Uncommitted earned about 20,000 against President Barack Obama in 2012, and a similar number when Hillary Clinton was fighting Bernie Sanders in 2016 and four years later when Sanders challenged Biden.
State party leaders are not publicly panicking. The Biden campaign hosted a press call just as most of the state’s polls closed to reassure the media.
Members of the Michigan State Democratic Party ‘know how to beat Donald Trump.’ We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again,” state President Lavora Barnes told reporters.
Former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, a leader in the fight for disengagement, said he doesn’t want Donald to “ever come close to the White House again.”
But he told DailyMail.com at a “non-committal” watch party that Biden’s problems are much more than tactical, after the president was criticized for not meeting Arab American leaders during his visit here as the resentment.
‘It’s not because they didn’t come early enough or do enough… This is not a political problem. You can’t solve it with really good substitutes.
He said Biden or any other Democrat “isn’t going to win without Michigan” and that “Joe Biden can’t win Michigan without changing course.”