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Residents arrive at a polling place in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to vote in the state’s primary election on April 2.
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Most Americans are no longer interested in voting, as the presidential primaries are effectively over. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump gathered enough delegates to win the Democratic and Republican nominations, respectively.
But an important message remained for Mr. Biden, especially from the results of Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary, where progressives and pro-Palestinian Democrats did not support the Democratic president. As of early Wednesday morning, about 48,000 votes, or 8.3% of the votes cast, in the Democratic primary were “no instructions.”
Biden was aggressively reversing course on Tuesday, addressing increasingly vocal concerns from the Muslim American community about the situation in Gaza.
He was scheduled to attend a scaled-down iftar dinner commemorating Ramadan at the White House. However, after receiving backlash from those planning to attend, the White House changed its plans and instead held a meeting with Muslim community leaders.
Meanwhile, President Trump is holding general election rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin focused on immigration and crime issues.
The primary technically runs through June, and some progressive voters in particular want to use the process to send a message to Biden about his support for Israel as the humanitarian crisis deepens in Gaza.
That’s why there’s going to be a lot of scrutiny on some people who didn’t vote for Biden in the Wisconsin Democratic primary and instead supported an “uncoached delegation.”
This is essentially the same as voting for the “non-commit” option that is on the primary ballot in many other states.
Rather than sending pro-Biden delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August or pro-Trump delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, these voters They are voting to give delegates the power to choose the candidates they want. This essentially sends a message to national parties and candidates that these voters are dissatisfied.
On the Democratic side, Biden had 2,606 delegates heading into Tuesday’s race, compared to 26 “non-committed” delegates across five states, and the Democratic caucus in American Samoa. Businessman Jason Palmer won an unexpected victory with three delegates. On the Republican side, President Trump received 1,686 delegates, while three candidates, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has since withdrawn from the race, received 103 delegates.
In any given year, a certain number of voters will choose the option of “no instructions.” nearly 2% In the 2012 Democratic primary in Wisconsin, a larger percentage of Democratic primary voters chose “no leadership” over then-President Barack Obama.
What’s different this year is that progressive and pro-Palestinian groups were actively encouraging Wisconsin voters to elect an “uncoached delegation.” A similar campaign that used the “non-commit” option in the Michigan Democratic primary in February received more than 100,000 votes, or about 13% of the primary vote, but Mr. The rate was 81%.
For comparison, more than 33,000 Michigan Republican voters, or 3%, chose “irresponsible” over both Trump and Haley.
Nick Antaya/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A volunteer holds up a “Vote Not Committed” sign outside the Oakman School polling place in Dearborn, Michigan, on February 27.
Although Wisconsin has fewer Arab-American voters than Michigan, it is one of the key battleground states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins. Mr. Trump won the White House in 2016 by winning states such as Wisconsin, but lost the White House in 2020 when Mr. Biden took it back to the Democrats.
Read this message from CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Gregory Krieg about the spoiler role Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could play as an independent candidate in states like Wisconsin. They note that Trump won in 2016 when the Green Party’s Jill Stein was the candidate in Wisconsin. When Stein was removed from the vote in 2020, he lost.
Connecticut and Rhode Island also had an “undecided” option on Tuesday’s presidential primary ballots. New York state also held a primary election, but did not list “non-commitment” as an option.
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After the Michigan protests, there were some signs that Biden and other Democratic leaders were developing on Israel.
The United States recently authorized the passage of the Gaza ceasefire resolution by the United Nations Security Council.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country’s top Jewish official, called for new elections in Israel and harshly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
When Biden’s event in North Carolina was interrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, he acknowledged that “they have a point.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is close to approving a deal to sell up to 50 US-made F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
As election results from the Wisconsin primary continued to roll in, Biden was scheduled to attend an iftar dinner at the White House to commemorate Ramadan, but the meeting was rescheduled as Biden was scheduled to attend an iftar dinner to commemorate Ramadan. This is clear evidence that he is dissatisfied with the situation.
For both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, decisions about how to support Israel are complex. The New York Times recently reported that President Trump said in an interview that Israel should “end” the Gaza Strip, alarming Israeli right-wing journalists. Whether it was advice or a request, the comments fell far short of the full-throated support for Israel that American conservatives might expect.
