As voters in the key swing state of Michigan prepare to cast their ballots in the Democratic primary at the end of February, a grassroots group is urging residents to send a clear warning to U.S. President Joe Biden by letting him know they are "uncommitted" to supporting him in the 2024 election, due to his support for Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Officially launching on Tuesday, Listen to Michigan is calling on voters in the state—which has a sizable Arab American community—to fill in the bubble marked "uncommitted" on their primary ballots on February 27. Biden, who won the first Democratic primary last week in South Carolina with 96% of the vote, will be on the ballot along with Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and author Marianne Williamson.
Layla Elabed, an activist and the sister of progressive Palestinian American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), is leading the group, which is planning to contact at least 80% of the 128,000 voters on its mailing list before the primary.
Elabed told The New York Times Tuesday that voters in Michigan must use their power as a voting bloc in the key state, where Biden only narrowly defeated former Republican President Donald Trump in 2020.
"We have the political power to really shift Biden's election," Elabed toldthe Times. "We did it in 2020."
The group's plan is hardly the first sign that Biden's continued funding and defense of Israel's relentless attacks on civilians in Gaza has alarmed many Democratic voters, including those in Michigan.
Eighty percent of Democrats told Data for Progress in one poll in October that the U.S. should push for a cease-fire in Gaza, and a survey by The Economistlast month showed that 50% of people who voted for Biden in 2020 believe the military operation the president has helped fund—in which Israel has now killed at least 27,585 people—amounts to a genocide.
NBC News released a new poll Sunday that found just 29% of American voters approve of Biden's policy related to Israel, which his administration has supplied with weapons without the approval of Congress at least twice since the war began in October. Forty-five percent of Democrats said they disapproved, compared to 44% who supported Biden's policy.
Despite the mounting evidence that a crucial voting bloc is deeply dissatisfied with Biden in the critical battleground state, when asked what the president's "message" to Arab American voters in Michigan was, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said only the "Israel has a right to defend itself" and that Biden is "heartbroken" over civilian casualties.
"These people are living in a fantasy world," said writer Dan Walden in response to the White House press secretary. "There is no world in which a Democrat wins Michigan without Arab American votes. The numbers simply do not exist."
At a press conference launching Listen to Michigan's effort on Tuesday, one organizer noted that former President Ronald Reagan made "one phone call" to Israeli officials in 1982 to pressure them to withdraw soldiers from Beirut.
"A complete cease-fire was declared," he said. "On the contrary, today President Joe Biden remains uncommitted to a cease-fire... As Democrats we will remember how Joe Biden is turning his back on humanity. He is ignoring our voice, the voice of the people."
Listen to Michigan's push for voters to select "uncommitted" on their ballots "is not an endorsement of Trump or a desire to see him return to power," emphasized the group. "The Democratic primary election is as an opportunity to question whether the incumbent genuinely holds the support of his own party's base. Michigan, a critical state in the general election and a key component of the Democratic coalition, is becoming a battleground where voters are expressing their disappointment and demanding a change in policy."
"We are sending the warning sign to President Biden and the Democratic Party now in February, before it's too late in November," the group said.
Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan—where just over 54% of residents are of Middle Eastern or North African descent, according to the 2020 census—was among local Arab American leaders who declined to meet Biden when he visited the state last week, saying his community's "immediate demand is crystal clear: The Biden administration must call for a permanent cease-fire to a genocide it is defending and funding with our tax dollars."
Listen to Michigan said on its website that "Biden must earn" the votes of Michigan residents, hundreds of whom marched in support of Palestinian rights in the Detroit area when Biden made an appearance there last week.
"President Biden has been a successful candidate in the past by representing a broad coalition, but right now he's not representing the vast majority of Democrats who want a cease-fire and an end to our government's unconditional weapons funding of Israel," said the group. "He's not representing the young people who put him in office and turned out in the midterms—and are now out protesting his policies in the streets."
With nine months until the general election, said Listen to Michigan, Biden must immediately begin to work to "earn back our trust after financing war and genocide in Gaza"—a task that will "be difficult."
"There is a long time between now and November for Biden to change his policies and earn support from Democratic voters," said the group. "He must stop funding the Israeli government's atrocities against the Palestinian people."
