‘Uncommitted’ voters show strength against Biden in Minnesota

The movement to object to President Biden’s position on Israel by voting “uncommitted” drew a significant share of the vote in Minnesota on Tuesday, despite a hastily organized campaign on a low budget.

When nearly 80 percent of the votes were counted Tuesday evening, “unrecorded” had garnered 19 percent support, enough to send delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The number of protest votes in Minnesota suggested that dissatisfaction with Biden’s position on the war in Gaza had spread beyond Muslim Americans to progressives and younger voters.

The state’s contest was just one of several across the country on Super Tuesday in which Democrats registered their dissatisfaction with the president.

In North Carolina, 12 percent of voters had cast their ballots for “no preference,” with more than 95 percent of the votes counted. In Massachusetts, “no preference” had earned nearly 9 percent with more than half the vote. Last week in Michigan, more than 100,000 people — 13 percent of voters — supported “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary, winning at least two delegates.

The last-minute campaign in Minnesota was put together by a coalition of Muslim voters and progressive Democrats angry with Mr. Biden over his alliance with Israel.

“Our goal is to get the president’s attention, and we are doing that,” Asma Mohammed, one of the initiative’s organizers, said at a watch party in Minneapolis as the results came in. The crowd erupted in chants of “Free Palestine!” while the number of ‘unpledged’ votes continued to rise.

Organizers had less time and money than their counterparts in Michigan, who they said had inspired their efforts. They started their campaign about a week before the primary, with early voting already underway, and said they spent about $20,000. In Michigan, organizers were able to spread their message for three weeks and raise about $200,000. They also benefited from the support of influential supporters such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the Detroit-area Democrat, and from a densely populated Arab-American community.

Still, Minnesota’s large population of Somali Americans, progressives and late-deciding voters, with a history of supporting idiosyncratic, independent candidates, allowed “unaligned” to put on a strong showing.

While Minnesota has a history of backing unconventional candidates — it elected Jesse Ventura as governor, sent Al Franken to the Senate and endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary — there isn’t much history to counter the “uncommitted” vote. can be dropped off on Tuesday. The last incumbent Democratic president, Barack Obama, won the Minnesota caucuses in 2012. In 2020, only 2,613 Minnesota Democrats chose “uncommitted.”

Representative Dean Phillips, a Democrat from the state who is running a protracted presidential campaign, also pulled some of the votes away from Mr. Biden. On Tuesday night he earned 8 percent.

Whether the dissatisfaction with Mr. Biden registered by Minnesota primary voters will hurt Mr. Biden in the general election is another question. In 2012, “uncommitted” won by double-digit percentages against Mr. Obama in primaries in Alabama, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Tennessee. However, none of these states had organized protest efforts, and none, such as Michigan and Minnesota, were competitive in November.

“Disengaged” supporters have said their movement — which spread across Super Tuesday states in the days leading up to the primaries — is influencing policy. The Biden administration recently expressed its support for a ceasefire with more urgency.

With its notable share of the vote in Minnesota, the “uncommitted” movement has exposed a weakness in Biden’s reelection bid: Many of those who supported him in 2020 do not believe his policies helped them.

“Gaza is the most important thing, but he has done nothing about jobs, gas prices and the border,” said 41-year-old Mudi Ali, who voted “voluntarily” in Minneapolis on Tuesday. Mr. Ali, a Somali-American Muslim, said he would not vote for the likely Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, but was considering delaying the November election rather than backing Mr. Biden again.

The results suggested the “disengaged” movement was gaining support from outside Muslim voters — a warning sign for the Biden campaign, which relies on student and progressive voter turnout. At a community center in a Minneapolis neighborhood with a notable Somali-American population, organizers had expected a significant turnout. By closing time, however, only about 200 people had voted, well below the level of the 2020 primary, pollsters said.

The challenge for Mr. Biden is convincing large numbers of disaffected Democrats to return to the party’s tent.

“He needs to know that Democrats are not going to blindly support him,” said Emma Kopplin, 21, a senior at Macalester College in Saint Paul who voted “uncommitted.”

One of the central themes of Mr. Biden’s campaign has been that Mr. Trump poses an urgent danger to American democracy. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a key ally of Biden, said in an interview Tuesday that “the Democrats will eventually come home.”

“They know the choice is democracy versus totalitarian chaos,” Mr. Walz said.

But another “disengaged” voter, Charlie Fletty, 27, of Saint Paul, said she wanted to see more policy achievements from Mr. Biden and fewer warnings about Mr. Trump.

“They have been holding Trump over our heads for years,” Ms Fletty said.

And although Biden won the primaries, even some Minnesotans who voted for him showed lukewarm enthusiasm.

“I think he’s too old,” said Mike Roberts, 70, of Minneapolis. “But at the moment you can’t change horses yet.”