Michigan Voters Talk About How the War in Gaza Factored Into Their Decision

When Tuesday began, Mohanad Gazzaley, 18, was not registered to vote, and he had not previously heard of the campaign to vote “uncommitted” in protest of President Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. Then, standing on the stoop of his parents’ home in Hamtramck, a Detroit suburb, he talked in the early afternoon with a canvasser from the Detroit chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

An hour later, Mr. Gazzaley was registered to vote, and he emerged from Hamtramck City Hall with two friends — also 18-year-old first-time voters — whom he had brought with him.

“I voted uncommitted for the Democratic Party because I want a cease-fire in Palestine,” said Saleh Zamzami, one of Mr. Gazzaley’s friends.

The devastating toll of the war in Gaza has sparked outrage across the United States, with protest movements taking hold in many cities and on college campuses. That anger may be felt most strongly in Michigan, which has some of the largest Arab American communities in the country, and where Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary offered an outlet to express it.

“What’s happening there is terrifying — to see kids dying, it’s just sad,” Mr. Gazzaley, whose family moved to the United States five years ago from Yemen, said as he chatted with the canvasser. He said he would tell his parents to vote, too.

But Ali Abbas, 44, of Dearborn, was unpersuaded by the campaign to vote “uncommitted.” He voted for Mr. Biden despite misgivings about his policies in the Middle East.