Michigan movement ‘surpasses expectations’ with more than 100,000 votes cast in protest of unequivocal US support for Israel.
In the Michigan city known as the capital of Arab America, United States President Joe Biden came second in the Democratic primaries, in a vote hailed as “groundbreaking”.
Most Democratic voters in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn chose “uncommitted” over the incumbent, as part of an organised effort to denounce his “unwavering” support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
And it wasn’t just Dearborn. Initial results, released early on Wednesday, reveal that more than 101,000 people across the state joined the protest campaign at the ballot box.
Advocates said the numbers serve as an enormous rebuke to Washington’s backing of Israel, not to mention a warning sign for Democrats heading into the general election in November.
“It’s huge,” Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf said of the “uncommitted” tally.
But Arraf, who is based in the Detroit area, said Tuesday’s 101,000 votes do not fully convey the growing frustration at Biden’s policies.
She pointed out that some voters opted to cast their ballots for other candidates also to display displeasure with the incumbent president. Both Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, who challenged Biden for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, have previously called for a ceasefire.
Phillips won 20,000 votes while Williamson, who dropped out of the race ahead of Tuesday’s voting, received more than 22,000. In the aftermath of the state primary, Williamson has announced she would relaunch her campaign.
One of the groups behind the effort to vote “uncommitted”, the Listen to Michigan campaign, celebrated the results in a social media post.
“Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations,” it wrote.
The group promised to continue the pressure at least until the Democratic National Convention in August when the party will officially choose its candidate after the individual state primaries and caucuses. It has not, however, released an announcement about its stance on the general election — and whether it will encourage voters to boycott Biden then.
‘Historic’ vote
The adage of “every vote counts” rings especially true in Michigan.
That’s because in November’s general election, presidential candidates compete in individual state contests for Electoral College votes. Those Electoral College votes then decide who wins the White House.
For instance, in 2016, former President Donald Trump beat his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes. The state was crucial to putting Trump in the White House.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump by about 150,000 votes in Michigan — roughly equal to the number of voters who did not support Biden in this primary election. Recent polls have shown an even tighter general election race in the likely event of a rematch between Biden and Trump.
The electoral math, according to Sally Howell, the director of the Center for Arab American Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, means the Biden campaign “has to be concerned about Michigan”.
Howell said the significance of Tuesday’s vote cannot be understated with the Arab American and Muslim voters in the state showing their electoral leverage despite representing a relatively small proportion of overall voters.
The Arab American community makes up about 2 percent of the electorate in Michigan, she explained. Together with the Muslim electorate, which overlaps with the Arab American community, they represent about 3 percent.
“I think it’s historic,” she told media. “And for Arab American political participation, it’s really groundbreaking. I don’t think they’ve ever gotten the attention of a presidential campaign like they have it now.”
In Arab American- and Muslim-dominated areas like Dearborn, the story is in the numbers.
For instance, in Hamtramck, a Detroit-area town that is believed to be the only Muslim-majority city in the country, the ballot category “uncommitted” received 61 percent of the votes, compared with 32 percent for Biden.
But even in areas with no significant Arab and Muslim presence, the uncommitted campaign made a strong showing, underscoring that the movement has extended beyond individual communities.
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