in 2012 uncommitted got 11% of the vote against actual human being running for reelection barack obama.
as of this moment uncommitted is. getting just under 15%. the other actual human being running for the dem nomination has barely under 3%.
unless all of those uncommitted voters don't vote for biden in november I don't see biden in any trouble, especially if those uncommitted democratic voters are made up by by around 30% of haley voters.
what this does tell me is that there is a major bias against biden in the media, as if they are actively reporting the news to make it seem like biden has some major electoral issues when a) trump has even bigger issues than biden and b) the numbers are simply not telling that story.
last report I saw via msnbc was dearborn at 56%. but even if it was 75%, it's still not enough of a margin to really be an election concern at this point for the state overall, especially since you don't know how many haley voters would vote biden.
make note of the result and do your best to resolve that issue but it's not a 5 alarm fire. that's the most muslim and specifically palestinian area of the country by far. the congressional district might get a few delegates out of this so it's going to be heard at the convention. but if that's going to be the extent of the discontent I don't think biden has to really be worried nationally.
as of right now uncommitted is at 12.7%, and this number has been shrinking all night long. I would not be surprised if it eventually hits the same percentage of uncommitted votes that has happened in the past few primaries which is 10%.
gaza was not the major election issue the media or rep. talib was making it out to be. it's certainly not a major general election issue considering the alternative.
as a fun side note marianne williamson who got out of the race a month ago is officially beating dean phillips who for some reason is still running.
michigan opened up more opportunities to go vote so more people voted. that was a historic vote the same way trump got the second most votes in a presidential election and still lost by 7 million. uncommitted ended up getting a few more points than they normally get. that's not historic.
The GOP had a total of 1.1 million votes last night. The Democrats had 767k total votes, 102k which were uncommitted. Don't be obtuse. This would have cost Biden the election if it was the general.
the democratic primary was uncontested. the republican primary technically speaking is still being contested. there is no reasonable incentive for a democratic primary voter to turn out. the fact that over 800k votes were cast in a one man race says a whole lot about democratic energy.
being obtuse is trying to say that being outvoted 6:1 on a issue that is undefined is a historic event. biden's handling of gaza is one reason to vote uncommitted. but so is being concerned about biden's age. but so is joe biden not being bernie sanders.
and by the way, you have no idea how many people who voted for haley or republican uncommitted (or democratic uncommitted for that matter) will end up voting for biden in november. to assume that every republican primary voter is going to be a guaranteed trump vote and every uncommitted democratic primary voter is a guaranteed not biden voter is stupid.
but here's what we did find out last night. the majority of democratic primary voters last night don't have an issue with the way biden is handling things. compared with other primaries this protest movement vote made no impact. now if you need to tell yourselves 100k voters means something to ease the disappointment, go right ahead. just know the actual results don't back you up.
sure they will. but a lot won't. you still don't know how many. and you are absolutely fooling yourself if you believe that all of those uncommitted people are going to be not biden voters.
"Uncommitted" is at about 15% now vs 10.7% the last time someone (Obama) ran unopposed, but most votes haven't been counted yet. I would have waited until the counting is over before talking about major rebukes.
There would have been well over 10,000 even with no campaign at all.
We went back and looked at Michigan Secretary of State data to see how many uncommitted votes have been cast for each party in the past presidential primary elections.
Turnout is much, much higher than it was during Obama's uncontested run. It looks like it's going to be about 925,000 total Democratic voters, as opposed to about 195,000 in 2012. With that said, 50,000 is still about 13.5% of the votes counted so far, which does look unusually high to me, although I would need more context if it was my job to advise Biden.
Anyway, that's not really the point I was trying to make originally. (There's no point in partisan bickering about something that will be objective fact tomorrow.) I was just annoyed that the media was jumping the gun before the votes were actually counted.
Anyone who wants to avoid Trump winning the election really needs to stop demanding complacency from the Dems. They need people to hold their noses and vote and all they can do is reassure everyone it's in the bag. Have they just forgotten 2016 or something?
I'm not complacent, at all. This is going to be a close election and everyone needs to vote even if they have to hold their nose.
I'm simply reacting to the "Biden is d00med" sentiment that is currently popular online. That can depress turnout and make it more difficult for Biden to win.
What depresses turnout, when the choices are so dismal, is telling people that all the warning signs mean nothing. It's not so much forgetting about 2016 as absolutely refusing to learn the lessons of 2016. I don't get it, I just don't get it.
Hey everyone else. Trump has a real prospect of winning. The Dems are, at best, useless but you're going to have to hold your nose and vote: just make sure you have a plan for holding their feet to the fire afterwards.
Not sure what the percentages of the separate ballots have to do with this. Do you think the same amount of people voted in the democrat and republican primaries?
They always shift right when it's an election year and you don't fall in line. I call it the "we don't need you" strategy. They did it to Bernie supporters too.
uncommitted finished slightly higher than what uncommitted normally runs.
what you have in this thread are people trying to convince themselves that barely getting more of a percentage of the vote that uncommitted normally gets is a huge statement because a lot of people voted for their issue, while totally ignoring the number of people who voted overall and the other reasons why people would vote uncommitted.
There is zero reason Biden is still running. There is zero reason the DNC and a country of Dems couldn't find anyone else to replace him with. Campaign money to DNC, greed and corruption.
There isn't a single patriot in the entire national Democratic body that cares about the future of this country.
"I was proud today to walk in, and pull a Democratic ballot, and vote 'uncommited,'" Tlaib said in a video message on Tuesday. "President Biden is not listening to us. This is the way we can use our democracy to say: listen. Listen to Michigan."
"President Biden has funded the bombs falling on the family members of people right here in Michigan," Elabed said in a statement on Monday. "Thousands of Michigan Democrats who voted for Biden in 2020 now feel completely betrayed."
It remains unclear how many of the "uncommitted" voters will continue to withhold their support in the general election, but organizers have argued that it's on Biden to earn their support — and they say it won't be their fault if Biden ends up losing Michigan to former President Donald Trump in the general election.
Ahead of the Tuesday primary, officials with the Biden campaign had pointed out that around 20,000 voters have opted to select "uncommitted" in recent presidential primary elections — though the circumstances have varied.
"Uncommitted" accounted for less than 2% of the vote in recent competitive primaries, including 19,106 uncommitted voters in 2020, and 21,601 in 2016.
Four years earlier, when Obama did not appear on the ballot, many of his supporters cast uncommitted votes over his opponent Hillary Clinton, leading to 238,168 votes that accounted for roughly 40% of the electorate.
The alternative is Trump and the end of democracy in our nation. If you're not terrified of Trump winning in November, you either haven't been paying attention or you're a moron.
Vote Biden. Not because you agree or disagree with his war policies or think he's been a good or bad president. Vote because the alternative is so much worse. Vote because we literally have Nazis schmoozing publicly with the other party like it's no big deal! Vote because you don't want an actual rapist in office! Vote because you want to be able to vote again in 4 years. Vote because you want your children to grow up in a nation that's still free.
Which is insane given that the man to whom he'd lose would be far worse for Palestineans...
The only way it makes sense is if the people who'd not vote over Israel don't actually care about Palestineans so much as being on the "right"/socially cool side of the issue. Otherwise not voting for Biden over trump because of Israel is like refusing to ride home with your friend because they had a beer and instead hopping in the car with the guy who was slamming tequila all night.
The only way it makes sense is if the people who'd not vote over Israel don't actually care about Palestineans so much as being on the "right"/socially cool side of the issue.
This is it. Politics is messy, and people don't want to get their hands dirty making a hard choice.
I think those people would think that defending Biden from critique over Palestine is more of an indication of not caring than protesting against it by threatening not to vote for him.
If it was just critique, people wouldn't be genuinely planning not to vote for him, handing Trump the win. It's textbook cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I'm certain there are some who feel like it's just people who don't care (and in most cases, they're wrong), but the rest have such a myopic view of the world—they're gonna be the ones to stop Biden and remain morally superior—that they forget there's more at stake than just Gaza, such as LGBTQ rights to exist, freedom from religion, and continuing democracy.
If it was just critique, people wouldn’t be genuinely planning not to vote for him, handing Trump the win. It’s textbook cutting off your nose to spite your face.
And if it was just critique (absent any threat of action), then there'd be no pressure for dialogue (which is why leftists regard liberals to be functionally the same as reactionaries, btw). It should be alarming to everyone here if Biden is willing to risk 'handing Trump the win' in order to avoid taking a firm stance against Israel's genocide in Gaza.
People claim they want to work for change, but often prove unwilling to exercise what little power they have to push for it. You're right though; if Biden proves unwilling to concede on issues that are non-negotiable to some of us, then people will be forced to look elsewhere to pressure that change, and what and where that looks like really remains to be seen. So far, two people have self-immolated in protest of the US's involvement in the Palestinian genocide. I think we should all be very concerned about what further actions people will take if the Biden administration continues their unconditional support of Israel, the least of which should be who ends up voting in november.
Yes. Is correct that liberal voters want Palestine enough to support trump. And this is right because trump is a strong leader such as Putin who alone can bring Palestine away from the evil Democratic Joe Biden.
Many people have been saying to not vote in order to show support for peace, and this is correct view. Also many of my texting friends are agreeing with me and I am a person with the sexually pronouns so that is true. I also work in unions and am woman of color.
The only way it makes sense is if the people who’d not vote over Israel don’t actually care about Palestineans so much as being on the “right”/socially cool side of the issue.
This statement is incredibly disrespectful to the people who are currently losing relatives in the 10s and 100s due to Biden's actions. Like hell they're not in this to be on the socially cool side of an issue shut the fuck up.
Unconditional US support from 2021-2024 is what got Israel there? Are you of the view that if we dumped them completely, right now, Israel would collapse or have no ability to prosecute their war against the Palestinians? To the best of my understanding, this is not the case, and I do not believe Biden has the ability to flatly dump Israel singlehandedly; I believe we have treaties with them, which are the law of the US and would need to be nullified by congress, which is never happening, and cannot reasonably be laid exclusively at Biden's feet.
Israel would collapse or have no ability to prosecute their war against the Palestinians?
Not collapse, but they wouldn't be able to continue bombing Gaza to the ground. I can't find the source (Edit: But their reserves are too limited). They'd also need to actually think of their neighbors' responses to their actions (remember how Sisi threatened to go to war over Gaza until Blinken had a "talk" with him), but let's set that aside because it's not something Biden can control single-handedly.
Biden has been bypassing Congress to send them weapons, pressing Congress for Israeli aid and on top of all that defending them at the UN (preventing measures such as UN-led sanctions from taking place). These are things Biden could stop doing right now that would materially impact Israel's campaign in Gaza, and the fact that he's not doing that is causing him to hemorrhage voters.
So, I don't disagree that he's doing those things. I'd also rather he stop those things, and push in the other direction, in a vacuum. It is not obvious to me that sending them weapons right now actually has much impact on their ability to conduct their genocide, and I suspect that what he is doing here, which again, I'd prefer he not, is in service to...
Reciprocity is a strong drive in humans. Giving someone something, even something they don't need, puts them in a space to agree to your requests, more so than if you flatly made them. It may be that those efforts, dislikable as they are from the perspective of an individual voter such as you or I, may be part of the realpolitik of getting Israel to stand the fuck down and stop killing people what the hell is wrong with you all seriously please please please stop fucking killing people. Ahem. He's been ramping up the pushback publically, and I think that pushback is lagging the private pushback, with the intent to have a stronger bargaining position. I will admit that I have insufficient data to have a strong belief in this area, and I do in fact rate that a weak belief, but it's consistent with the evidence I have.
This universe sucks and we need to make it better. Throwing up our hands and letting the guy who will send US troops to shove Gazans into the ocean and hold them underwater is the opposite of making it better. The majority of probability mass in november rests on a Biden-Trump competition. Of those options, I prefer Biden. Not because he's perfect, but because I can see that in a competition between bad and worse, worse is worse. Shit sucks. Opting not to vote doesn't opt you out of that world.
It seems very much to me like people trying to keep some ideal of purity for themselves, and if someone who unironically says, "genocide Joe" would care to correct me I'm listening, but it's unclear how letting the guy who changed the us stance on settlements being unlawful to being totally cool win because of your unwillingness to recognize that this world is actively on fire, and we have to live with whatever future we steer to regardless.
"If you decide not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Are you really expecting someone who lost relatives in Gaza to vote for the guy who had the power to do something about it and didn't?
This campaign is telling Biden that there's a voting block that holds the balance of power in a swing state, and all he has to do to get their votes is pick up the phone, tell Bibi to wrap it up or he gets no more weapons (and yes, it is that simple. Reagan did it when Israel invaded Lebanon).
But instead of meeting voters where they are, Democrats seem to fall back to their usual MO of blaming voters, instead of winning votes by doing things that are popular with voters.
It makes them feel better to think it's just online leftists doing purity politics rather than a deeply angered population who have been giving him every opportunity to turn away from this and mostly just treated as an inconvenience.
People have outright stated to me that they are doing purity politics. While I cannot prove that every single person I suggest is likely doing so, is actually doing so, I am not making such claims in a vacuum.
I took a handful of anecdotes from my online life and decided that people I encounter online have a decently high probability of being more examples of the same thing.
Any excuse necessary to continue support for genocide. It's interesting to see the very first policy centrists don't immediately abandon when they encounter pressure.
Unfortunately, failing to choose means choosing the worse option.
Though, had all the young pro Palestine leftists bothered to show up during the 2020 or 2016 primaries, there might be a more progressive president and thus a better set of choices. Unfortunately, showing up to the primaries seems anathema to the under 30 crowd, hence, two terrible choices.
You may not like it, but that’s democracy- even progressive people you wish would vote for Biden might not, even if it means trump wins. Some of them are accelerationists who will vote for Trump directly, no matter how ill advised that may be.
BUT, to complain about the effects of their own choices is absurd.
"I made a conscious decision to not vote progressive and now a centrist politician is enacting centrist policies with entirely predictable outcomes! How could this have happened?!?"
Luckily the people in this article are making their voices heard, looking for a more progressive option. I think people will complain no matter who gets voted in, especially if a person they didn’t vote for won. But I don’t know that people who are voting against Biden because of Palestine will wish he had won if trump wins, I think they might wish Biden had taken this hint and acted differently, but that’s not the same thing.
Luckily the people in this article are making their voices heard
And if they'd done so in the primaries, that change might have done some good for Palestineans.
But I don’t know that people who are voting against Biden because of Palestine will wish he had won if trump wins, I think they might wish Biden had taken this hint and acted differently, but that’s not the same thing.
Not the same thing to us rich westerners, no. And it's not the same to the Palestineans who would suffer worse with a trump presidency.
This position makes zero sense. If you give a damn about Palestineans and the worse option wins, how could you not wish the better option had won?
The folks considering not voting either don't actually give a damn about Palestinean well being or are mind bogglingly counter productive.
There is no universe in which someone is simultabeously: a) genuinely concerned about Palestineans B) considering not voting Biden because of Palestine and C) has at least the intelligence of a turnip.
I don’t think you understand how bad things are under Biden- would you actually vote for someone under whose approval your relative thirsted to death? If so, congratulations on your compartmentalization ability. That would be essentially endorsing those actions and many, many people aren’t able to do that.
So, the question really is do you think so little of these folks that you think they can't comprehend those basic facts? Do you believe they are incapable of simple logic? Or do you think they are sociopaths? Or do you actually think they are disingenuous about their feelings for Palestineans?
Out of the two of us, I'm the only one dignifying these people as functional, albeit grieving, adults. If you'd ever had to deal with the mountains of paperwork following an unexpected death you'd know that grief doesn't turn you into a child.
I don’t know if I truly believe there will be Palestinians by next January, so I don’t know if trump could be worse for them. If he takes office, he might be more enthusiastic, but I don’t think Netanyahu will stop as long as someone in the White House supports him. When Biden does it while holding his nose, it’s not less useful support.
Not voting may help trump or Biden, depending on your jurisdiction.
Oh boy, those are some pretty silly arguments. I can see why you're supporting this nonsense then.
Some 30,000 Palestineans are estimated to have died since October. You could have double that number die _every month _until January and there would be 4+ million Palestineans.
Unless what, you think Bibbi is going to start dropping nukes? Really?
Come on, that's just the dumbest idea. Explain how an otherwise democratic voter, the type of voter whom the damn article is about, not voting somehow helps Biden.
You’re rude to me too! How fun. This is my last reply.
I absolutely see the escalation that has already occurred from each month to the next and understand how things could get much worse, much more quickly, without nuclear bombs (think about Dresden).
A progressive voter in a solid blue area who will not vote for Biden but may have voted in this primary could absolutely help him by not voting for a third party candidate.
Except, Dresden had a population of 600,000 and lost ~ 25000 people and many folks lived there throughout and after the war. Just like Palestinians will. And of course, if you read the news you'd know that Israel aims to have the bulk of their boots on the ground phase before the summer.
Biden but may have voted in this primary could absolutely help him by not voting for a third party candidate.
This is just silly. You might as well say Biden is actually helping Palestinians by not having the American military bomb Gaza.
I think at this point, you know how nonsensical your position is, you just don't have the maturity to admit it. At least, I hope that's what's up. Because these are truly childish arguments and if this nonsense is what we on the left have to offer then we deserve to lose elections.
No, I do not expect someone who lost relatives in Gaza to vote for the person they blame for it. Humans are creatures of emotion first and logic second, and the vast majority of people won't be able to divorce themselves from their emotional state to do the expected value math. That doesn't mean that, by letting Trump win, they will be doing something other than permitting more people to get massacred faster.
Are you aware that the administration has been pushing on them to not do the shit they've been doing? It seems to me like the answer to that is no, and you expect Biden to just declare terms to a country half a world away which has quite a lot of weapons already, up to and including nuclear arms, I think. Israel is capable of producing weapons on their own. Today isn't 40 years ago.
Biden has done many things that are popular, but people are poorly informed. How much student debt has Biden forgiven, off the top of your head and without consulting the internet?
They haven't been pushing hard enough. The US gives Israel billions in 'aid', and that is definitely leverage that they haven't been willing to use. They're just leaking stuff about Biden 'being frustrated with Netanyahu' and whatever, but there's no evidence of the US daring to touch aid, conditioning aid or even following the US' own laws regarding human rights when providing weapons (you might remember the state department employee who quit in protest over that).
They're just sitting by while Israel is blocking food aid and is preparing to commit a massacre in Rafah.
As for student loans: it's a lot less than what they could've done if they just did a blanket forgiveness, because of the asinine fear of forgiving the loans for someone that is somehow undeserving (like fictional billionaire's children who wouldn't have needed to take out loans to begin with).
A lot less than they could've done, if they just did a blanket forgiveness, and the conservative supreme court didn't strike it down like they struck down the 400b. Do you have any idea of the actual number, though? And how does that number compare to prior presidents? To the likely nonbiden outcomes of this election?
I agree that I want them to do more. This still is not a reason to let the guy who will make it so much worse into office. "This meal wasn't good enough, so I'm going to burn the house down," is not a rational perspective.
The department of education has the simple authority to forgive loans, a process they're using right now (with a huge bureaucratic overhead of means testing, using loan servicers, etc).
For whatever reason they initially decided to try and use the heroes act instead, after declaring that the pandemic was 'over'. So of course the Supreme Court struck it down.
They could've just told the education secretary to forgive everyone's loans from the start. Or set the interest rates to 0% for everyone (as it's really the compound interest that's killing everyone).
Someone said Biden feels real bad about the genocide, it must be true. Just because Biden gave Israel 14 billion in fast track funding without congressional approval doesn’t mean he is pro genocide. He called Natanyahu on the phone….. and said yes daddy, yes daddy! Ohhh. The left or the right nut daddy!
The problem is anti-Biden proponents never provide a viable candidate who can beat both Trump and Biden in November when asked to do so.
Whinge about Biden all you want, but unless an alternative is provided, it's shouting into the void at best and helping Trump at worst.
I support what Michigan did, and I hope Biden gets the message, but I also hope they're not so far up their own asses that they forget that handing the presidency to Trump in November won't actually solve the problem of genocide and will likely bring along other human rights violations.
Yes. I'm sorry for their loss, but the dead are gone. Society, government, the future is for the living. There is more at stake than just Gaza, and whether they like it or not, this FPTP system means they get to choose between two candidates they won't like, both of whom will commit genocide, one who has a possibility of relenting, and one will make their lives even worse.
They've proposed Sanders twice, and while he's not running this time (and at this stage too old), he beat Trump by huge margins in every head to head poll, both cycles. Unfortunately the corporate media made sure they pushed their corporate friendly candidates (Clinton in 2016, Biden in 2020) instead of creating a fair playing field.
You could see in this cycle as well where Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips did not get any airtime, while on the Republican side candidates that were polling below 1% got entire CNN town halls. (Not to mention how third party candidates get treated).
President Joe Biden may have handily won the Michigan Democratic primary on Tuesday, but the results came with a significant warning sign for his continued support for Israel.
It's largely the result of the "Listen to Michigan" campaign, an effort to get voters to withhold support for Biden until Israel enacts a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
The campaign has been led by Layla Elabed, a Michigan activist and the younger sister of Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress.
The results illustrate the unique challenges that Biden faces in the crucial battleground state amid the war in Gaza, where almost 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Tens of thousands of Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans live in Dearborn and metropolitan Detroit, including some whose family members have been killed in recent months.
In 2012, when President Barack Obama faced a non-competitive reelection and there was no organized effort to push voters to cast uncommitted ballots, 20,833 did so anyway, accounting for 10.7% of the vote.
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