The Shocking Protest Vote That Rocked the Michigan Primary Is Just the Beginning

President Joe Biden’s primary win in Michigan is not the victory his campaign had hoped for. Though he won a majority of Democratic votes, over 100,000 people—about 13 percent of Michigan’s electorate—opted to vote “uncommitted” to protest the president’s unfettered support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Biden won Michigan by about 154,000 votes in 2020; according to nearly all available polls, he was already losing Michigan to Trump. The final tally was 10 times what organizers had publicly projected, and now the “uncommitted” campaign will likely be sending delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer.

“Every person who voted ‘Uncommitted’ today was personally compelled to use their voice to speak out against President Biden’s support of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people,” wrote Abdullah H. Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, on X.

Even before the results came in, Biden surrogates were working hard to downplay the seriousness of the “uncommitted” campaign. The president’s statement last night did not mention the protest vote; his acolytes have blitzed mainstream media, clamoring to minimize the tally as no more significant than the 10 percent of “uncommitted” voters who spurned Barack Obama in Michigan in 2012, when 20,000 ballots went “uncommitted” in an unsanctioned race with drastically different political stakes. The Obama campaign worked to keep his supporters away from the 2012 primary due to a procedural feud with Michigan Republicans, during an era of much weaker political polarization, and still somehow did (much) better than Biden last night.

Despite that substantial turnout, there were no signs Wednesday morning that the White House intended to change course. “Presidential aides continue to believe that today’s ‘uncommitted’ voters will be November’s Biden voters once they have a stark choice in front of them,” Politico reported.

Still, the White House had already been nervous about the uncommitted votes before the results came in. “They are freaking out about the uncommitted vote,” a Democrat close to Biden told Politico Playbook on Tuesday, in a report that described “panic at the White House.” Leaked messaging guidance from the Biden administration directed top Michigan Democrats “to push back against the Uncommitted activists.” That approach “has not gone over well,” according to Politico. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was willing to toe that line, but other elected Dems have not.

In fact, Whitmer was never a strong proxy on the issue; she had been persona non grata in Dearborn since October, when her first attempt to ease tensions with a visit was abruptly canceled in part due to community outrage. The Biden campaign began quietly working on damage control, dispatching surrogates to Michigan with mixed success. And only on the eve of Michigan’s primary did the president say he hoped a cease-fire deal could be reached by next week. Biden himself hasn’t visited Michigan since Feb. 1.

Democrats’ discontentment with Biden’s Israel policy has been far-reaching. Polling has shown that critical demographic groups disapprove of Biden’s unwavering support for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its campaign that has killed at least 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Young voters, Black voters, and Arab American voters, in particular, especially on the Democratic side, strongly favor a cease-fire. It just so happens Michigan is home to a whole bunch of all three.

At the start of February, the Listen to Michigan campaign began canvassing residents in Dearborn, home to one of the country’s largest concentration of Arab and Muslim Americans, many of whom immigrated to the U.S. from Palestine and who still have family and friends currently living there. The group pegged its goal at 10,000 votes for “uncommitted,” which was about the margin Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by in the 2016 general election. The effort was never meant to seriously challenge Biden’s primary chances, but to signal to the White House that its current policy on the Israel–Hamas war needs to change. While Biden has stood by Israel and bypassed Congress to approve over $200 million in military aid, the U.S. has also now vetoed cease-fire resolutions three times.

The situation frustrated Michigan Democrats, including Dearborn Mayor Hammoud, who endorsed the “uncommitted” campaign and served as a spokesperson for it. In a New York Times op-ed, Hammoud noted that Arab American voters were a “crucial and dependable” voting bloc for Democrats in 2020, and now, four years later, the president is asking for their votes again while “selling the very bombs that Benjamin Netanyahu’s military is dropping on our family and friends.”

Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib—the sole Palestinian American in Congress who was censured for promoting pro-Palestinian protest footage—also came out forcefully in favor of the “uncommitted” campaign. Support from Tlaib, an activist often willing to strafe against the Democratic establishment, was no surprise. But endorsements from more moderate Dems, like former Rep. Andy Levin and Texas Democrat Beto O’ Rourke, showed that the campaign had traction beyond the typically marginal, left-wing world.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Majority for Israel super PAC, an ally of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, rolled out its own preemptive guidance on how to interpret the “uncommitted” campaign. The group highlights that a vote for “uncommitted” is not unprecedented, while also hand-picking polling that indicates that U.S. voters are in favor of Israel engaging in war with Hamas, despite the toll on Palestinian civilians. In the lead-up to Tuesday’s election, they spent money on a desperate counter-organizing campaign to frame an “uncommitted” vote as one for Trump. Given their millions of dollars in reserve, it’s possible they spent competitively with the paltry $200,000 the Listen to Michigan organizers laid out.

Michiganders aren’t the only ones who have used their votes to object to the president’s Israel policy. Activists launched a movement days before the New Hampshire Democratic primary to get voters to write in “cease-fire.” But the ballots there required voters to write in another candidate, whereas in Michigan the “uncommitted” voters needed only to check a box. Just over 10,000 votes went to write-in candidates in New Hampshire’s primary. More broadly, Biden campaign events have repeatedly drawn anti-war protesters, including one event in Virginia during which Biden was interrupted at least 14 times with chants of “Genocide Joe” and “Cease-fire now or not vote.”

There’s no question that Biden’s Israel policy has done lasting damage in a state that has been perhaps Democrats’ brightest of bright spots. Since Trump won the state in 2016, the Michigan Democratic Party has won back numerous seats in the state Legislature, dominated two governor’s races, and built up an infrastructure such that it has been almost reliably blue despite a very swingy reputation. The Democratic majorities have helped pass signature, watershed legislation.

For a brief moment, Biden was part of that success story, traveling to Michigan to march on the picket line with a reinvigorated United Auto Workers union. Now his stance on Israel threatens to set back years of hard-won victories for Democrats in a critical swing state.

It’s unlikely Michigan will be where this ends. Several other states yet to vote have an “uncommitted” option on their Democratic ballots, including states like Minnesota, which will vote in next week’s Super Tuesday primaries. You can bet the White House, despite all public pledges to the contrary, will be closely paying attention to them.