‘Uncommitted’ Voters Show Strength Against Biden in Minnesota

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. The effort to pressure the president over his support for Israel garnered a sizable share of the vote, despite being more hastily organized. Voters in other states also voiced unease. […]

‘Uncommitted’ Voters Show Strength Against Biden in Minnesota

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The effort to pressure the president over his support for Israel garnered a sizable share of the vote, despite being more hastily organized. Voters in other states also voiced unease.

Hibak Mohamed, a Minnesota voter, casting her ballot for “uncommitted” on Tuesday at a polling site in a Minneapolis gymnasium.
Hibak Mohamed voting “uncommitted” in Minneapolis on Tuesday. Credit…Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times

Nicholas NehamasReid J. Epstein

The movement objecting to President Biden’s position on Israel by voting “uncommitted” drew a significant share of the vote on Tuesday in Minnesota despite having a hastily organized and low-budget campaign.

With nearly 80 percent of ballots counted on Tuesday night, “uncommitted” had earned 19 percent support, enough to send delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The number of protest votes in Minnesota suggested that dissatisfaction over Mr. Biden’s stance on the war in Gaza had spread beyond Muslim Americans to progressives and younger voters.

The state’s contest was just one of several across the nation on Super Tuesday in which Democrats registered unhappiness with the president.

In North Carolina, 12 percent of voters had cast ballots for “no preference” with more than 95 percent of the vote counted. In Massachusetts, “no preference” had earned nearly 9 percent with more than half the vote in. Last week in Michigan, more than 100,000 people — 13 percent of voters — supported “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary, winning at least two delegates.

The last-minute campaign in Minnesota was assembled by a coalition of Muslim voters and progressive Democrats who are angry with Mr. Biden for his alliance with Israel.

“Our goal is to get the president’s attention, and we are doing that,” Asma Mohammed, one of the effort’s organizers, said at a watch party in Minneapolis as the results came in. The crowd broke into chants of “Free Palestine!” as the number of “uncommitted” votes kept rising.


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