Joe Biden won the Democratic primary in Michigan on Tuesday, but was chastised by a significant portion of voters for his support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, a state with a large Muslim and Arab population. .
According to early estimates, 58,000 voters have chosen the “non-binding” vote, the equivalent of a white vote, in Michigan in response to activists’ calls to pressure the US president to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
This result is worrying for the Democrat, because four years ago he won in Michigan against Donald Trump by a narrow margin.
Activists from this Midwestern US state had launched the “Listen to Michigan” campaign to send “a strong and unmistakable message” that funding and supporting the war in Gaza “goes against the values of the Democratic Party”.
The campaign wanted to mobilize at least 10,000 voters, a number that was not only symbolic. That was the margin of votes between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016, when the Democratic candidate lost Michigan.
“Our movement emerged victorious today and far exceeded expectations. “Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom voted for Biden in 2020, are not committed to his re-election because of the war in Gaza,” the campaign said in a statement.
“Today I am proud (…) to vote white,” said Rashida Tlaib, the US congresswoman of Palestinian descent from Michigan, asking Biden to listen to “the majority of Americans who say ‘enough.’ Enough wars, enough of you using our dollars to finance a genocide.”
Michigan allows voters to choose the “non-binding” ballot to indicate they doubt a party’s candidate has grassroots support.
American support for Israel
As the civilian death toll in Gaza mounts, Biden is seeing Muslim and Arab-Americans, whose support was critical in 2020 to Trump’s victory in the state of Michigan, drifting away.
White House officials are increasingly expressing their exasperation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the way he is conducting the war in Gaza.
However, the US continues to deliver large quantities of weapons to Israel, while at the same time conducting intense negotiations to reach a second ceasefire in the war.
Biden has asked Congress for billions of dollars more in military aid for Israel, and his administration has vetoed draft UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire.
Organizers of the Listen to Michigan campaign want to take their anti-war agenda to the Democratic convention in Chicago in August.
Trump continues to advance
In a statement late Tuesday, Biden said, “I want to thank every Michigan resident whose voice was heard today,” without referring to the protest vote. “Donald Trump threatens to drag us further back into the past as he seeks revenge and retribution,” he added.
Michigan is expected to have a decisive role in the November 5 presidential election, where it is very likely that Biden and Trump will face each other again, as it is an ambivalent state, which can support either one party or the other.
“We have to win on November 5th and we will win and it will be like nothing anyone has ever seen before,” Trump said. “It will be fantastic. We’re going to beat Michigan, we’re going to win the whole thing.”
Already the billionaire has won all the primary votes that have been held so far.
His only challenger for the Republican nomination remains former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who even lost in her home state of South Carolina. However, he refuses to drop out of the race, stressing that he does not believe Trump can beat Biden in November.
“We’ve only seen a handful of states vote,” Haley said yesterday. “We’re taking it one state at a time,” he added, speaking to CNN.
SOURCE: APE-ME
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