"Uncommitted" is emerging as a dirty word for the Joe Biden camp ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Tens of thousands of Super Tuesday voters sent a message to President Biden, choosing to mark "uncommitted" on their ballots over voting for the Democratic incumbent. The movement has served as the impetus for an onslaught of negative press for Biden as progressive groups have backed the "uncommitted" vote to protest Biden's support for Israel and its continued war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
NBC News published a headline, "’A clarion call’: Democratic donors sound the alarm to Biden about strength of 'uncommitted,’" which reported that wealthy progressives are extremely concerned.
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The "uncommitted" option appeared on the Democratic ballot in seven Super Tuesday states – Minnesota, Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee, and each took a chunk of support away from the president. The Super Tuesday "uncommitted" votes come just a week after Arab American and Muslim community leaders in Michigan, home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the U.S., urged voters not to support Biden.
"A network of major Democratic donors is raising the alarm about Joe Biden’s performance in Michigan, calling the traction of ‘uncommitted’ in last week’s Democratic presidential primary a "’wake-up call’ for the president in the critical battleground state," NBC News reported, publishing a memo from Way to Win, a hub for liberal donors.
"Michigan’s 100,000+ uncommitted voters in 2024 are a siren, and a clarion call," Way to Win’s co-founders wrote in the memo obtained by NBC News. "The energy behind ‘uncommitted’ is not something that should be ignored, taken lightly, or dismissed as isolated to Michigan. Michigan 2024 is not an anomaly, just as Michigan 2016 was not."
New York Times politics writer Jonathan Weisman said Biden "weathered yet another embarrassment when ‘uncommitted’ won nearly 46,000 votes — 19 percent of the total — in the Minnesota primary."
A separate New York Times report headlined, "‘Uncommitted’ Effort to Protest Biden Will Shift Its Focus to Washington State," noted that labor unions and the Seattle chapter of the American Federation of Teachers have endorsed "Uncommitted" to oppose Biden.
"It gives them hope that they can make an impact and let the president and party hear their voice," a Palestinian-American member of a local City Council told the Times.
However, the Times noted that "with Washington conducting its elections entirely by mail, the late push that helped ‘uncommitted’ efforts in Michigan and Minnesota may not have the same effect."
The Times also noted that Biden aides have "expressed little concern about the long-term implications of the ‘uncommitted’ votes."
"They argue there are months left for the Gaza conflict to calm down and for Mr. Biden to win back Democrats who hoped to send him a message. They also point to 2012, when ‘uncommitted’ won double-digit percentages against President Barack Obama in several states," the Times reported.
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Many other media outlets have put a spotlight on the anti-Biden undertaking.
NPR published a headline, "'Uncommitted' movement spreads to Super Tuesday states," while Al Jazeera went with, "Minnesota’s ‘stunning’ uncommitted vote reveals enduring problem for Biden."
Minnesota’s Star Tribune noted that a "push from progressive Minnesotans and members of the Muslim community to get voters to check ‘uncommitted’ in the state's Democratic presidential primary won nearly 46,000 votes Tuesday, far surpassing their goal of 5,000 votes," and USA Today featured an explainer on how "uncommitted" performed across the nation.
As the last two elections have shown, differences of a few thousand votes can decide who wins a key battleground state and with it the presidency. Trump's narrow victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2016 propelled him to the White House, while Biden recaptured those states and also scored close victories in Arizona and Georgia.
Despite the onslaught of negative attention "uncommitted" has received, the Biden campaign has remained calm on the surface.
"The President believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans," Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt told NPR.
Fox News Digital’s Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
