A progressive coalition key to winning Michigan in November is urging Democrats to ditch President Biden in this month’s Democratic primary.
Upset by the administration’s lukewarm support for Israel, a group of liberal activists and Arab American community leaders are urging Michigan Democrats to mark “uncommitted” on their ballot in the state’s primary instead of supporting Biden.
Over the weekend, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) endorsed the new grassroots campaign.
As The Guardian reports:
Appearing in a video posted to X on Saturday by Listen to Michigan, a political campaign to encourage the state’s voters to vote “uncommitted” in the 27 February primary, Tlaib justified her stark display of displeasure with Biden by alluding to Israel’s military strikes on Gaza, which local authorities say have killed nearly 29,000 Palestinians since last October.
Tlaib – Congress’s only Palestinian American lawmaker – also criticized the Biden White House’s support for Israel, which launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to the 7 October Hamas attacks that killed about 1,200 Israelis.
Speaking in front of the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, which has one of the US’s largest populations of Arab Americans, Tlaib said: “It is important … to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local elected [officials], and passing city resolutions all throughout our country. It is also important to create a voting bloc, something that is a bullhorn to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”
Tlaib added: “We don’t want a country that supports war and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza … This is the way you can raise our voices. Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government.
In the 2020 election, Biden defeated incumbent President Trump in Michigan by a margin of 2.78%. Precincts with the highest percentage of Muslims and Arab American voters overwhelmingly supported Biden, with the Democrat receiving 83% of the vote.
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