US President Joe Biden is expected to sweep Minnesota’s Super Tuesday Democratic primary but some suburban women and Jewish activists are joining Muslim Americans in an “uncommitted” protest vote over his Israel policy, voter interviews show.
Biden, 81, has been dogged by anger and a growing, organised backlash from some members of his own party over his staunch support for Israel as the US ally’s attacks on Gaza have created a humanitarian catastrophe and killed over 30,000 people. Israel is responding to Hamas’ October 7 attacks that killed 1200 and took hundreds hostage.
Protesters call for a ceasefire outside the White House.Credit: AP
Minnesota’s hastily organised “uncommitted” vote push comes after more than 100,000 joined a similar protest in Michigan’s Democratic primary. Organisers say they don’t expect it to attract the same 13 per cent of all votes, or about one in eight, as Michigan did.
It is getting backers from a wide range of Democrats in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul, known as the Twin Cities, Reuters interviews show.
Walter Fromm, 26, a Minneapolis activist and self-described “anti-Zionist Jew,” said his grassroots group “Take Action Minnesota” has been supporting the “uncommitted” campaign.
“I’ve reached out to my entire Jewish community here in the Twin Cities,” he said, as well as friends across the United States. “We need a permanent ceasefire now. We need aid and restoration and support for 1.9 million starving Palestinians in Gaza.”
Fromm predicts the “uncommitted” movement, which is organising in Georgia and Pennsylvania, among other battleground states, will “continue to grow … state by state and continue to win delegates.”
While the general election pits party against party, the primary is a space for Democrats to “hold our own side accountable, to really make them listen to what the people want,” said Charlie Bartlett, 27, a development associate at a literary arts nonprofit, who said she was voting uncommitted in Richfield, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Reuters
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