Just over 100,000 people cast the equivalent of a blank vote in the Michigan Democratic primary Tuesday, after a campaign to punish President Joe Biden for his support of Israel in the Gaza war, according to provisional results published Wednesday.
This is a “clear and resounding message” to Mr. Biden, who is seeking a second term, in favor of a “permanent ceasefire now,” Layla Elabed, one of from those responsible for “Listen to Michigan”. This movement actively campaigned for a boycott of the Democratic president during the primary.
The head of state, who will likely face right-wing ultra-favorite Donald Trump on November 5, obtained more than 614,000 votes, or around 81% of the vote. The “uncommitted” vote, the equivalent of a blank vote, collected more than 100,000 votes, or around 13% of the votes.
The initiative was intended to show Mr. Biden that she could mobilize enough voters to threaten his performance in the presidential election, hoping to pressure him into calling for an immediate ceasefire. .
Donald Trump won Michigan, one of these key states likely to tip the scales in the presidential elections, by around 10,000 ballots in 2016. In 2020, Joe Biden snatched it from him with around 150,000 votes.
“I hope, Mr. President, that you will hear us. That you will choose democracy rather than tyranny, that you will choose the American people rather than Benjamin Netanyahu,” the Israeli Prime Minister, Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, said at the same press conference.
This Detroit suburb has a large Muslim and Arab population.
Asked about the possibility that the campaign risks allowing a victory for Donald Trump, the mayor replied that the question had to be “referred” to Mr. Biden. “We are not electing Donald Trump. [Biden] has to earn the votes of the constituency he’s trying to serve,” he said.
In the press release in which he reacted to his victory, Joe Biden thanked “all the people of Michigan who made their voices heard”, without mentioning this protest vote.
Abbas Alawieh, spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, said the statement “ignored” blank voters and whose message was “clear”: “This community needs him to change his policies before he come and ask for our votes.”