Gaza war protest vote movements
As part of the Gaza war protests in the United States, protest vote movements in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries were initiated to target President Joe Biden's and Vice President Kamala Harris's reelection campaigns. After a notable "uncommitted" vote in Michigan, activists sought to replicate the protest in other states. While some activists under Abandon Biden/'Abandon Harris argued against supporting the Democratic ticket entirely during the 2024 presidential election, others in uncommitted movements' led by the Uncommitted National Movement urged to use uncommitted votes during the presidential primary to pressure the Biden administration to change policies before the presidential election. Both groups overlap and supported each other's goals, to the point of being considered "twin" movements. On July 21, 2024, Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election and endorsed Harris as his replacement.
The movements were the main opposition to the Biden 2024 presidential campaign and received higher vote totals than many contenders in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, including Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, and Beto O'Rourke. Uncommitted votes also achieved a higher percentage of the vote than the 2020 campaign of Pete Buttigieg, with only a fraction of the spending. The Uncommitted campaign won 36 delegates in the primaries. The Uncommitted movement received its best results in the Hawaii caucus and the Minnesota primary. Following the Minnesota primary, Minnesota governor Tim Walz was sympathetic to the Uncommitted movement. After Biden's withdrawal from the race, the movement demanded Harris, the 2024 presumptive Democratic nominee, to oppose U.S. military aid to Israel, the Gaza genocide, and Israeli occupation of Palestinians. Harris selected Walz as her running mate on August 6, 2024. By October 2024, Uncommitted tended to encourage its supporters to vote for Harris, while Abandon Harris endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Ceasefire movement
On January 18, 2024, voters promoting a ceasefire in the Gaza war launched a write-in campaign for "Ceasefire" in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Since incumbent president Joe Biden had declined to appear on the ballot due to Democratic National Convention sanctions, with allies instead mounting a write-in campaign, advocates of the ceasefire campaign hoped that the increased focus on the write-in section of election results would send a message. New Hampshire secretary of state David Scanlan indicated that these "Ceasefire" votes were tallied. Ultimately, "Ceasefire" received 1,497 votes, or 1.28%.Uncommitted movements
The uncommitted movements are protest vote movements built around urging voters to write-in or check an uncommitted voting option to protest Biden's support for the Gaza war, and to push for a permanent ceasefire and ending military aide to Israel. The movements aims to "make these changes ahead of the general election or risk losing Democratic voter support".2024 Michigan Democratic primary
A movement for an uncommitted vote called Listen to Michigan was started by community organizers in Dearborn, including the younger sister to representative Rashida Tlaib with a budget of $250,000. The group aimed to use the uncommitted vote during the presidential primary to send a message to the Biden campaign to support a ceasefire, or else lose the presidential election. Both Rashida Tlaib and Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud endorsed the campaign. Democratic Majority for Israel ran opposition ads against the uncommitted movement, arguing that a vote for uncommitted would represent support for Trump. Our Revolution endorsed the uncommitted movement and also helped support outreach for it.The movement was primarily led by a vocal minority of Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, and progressives. Although the campaign aimed originally for 10,000 votes, which was the margin by which Hillary Clinton lost in the 2016 election, which was considered a low vote total historically, the final vote count exceeded it and reach 101,000 votes, or approximately 13.2% of the vote. As a result, the campaign won 2 delegates to send to the 2024 Democratic National Convention. While some progressive commentators, such as Michael Moore, stated that Biden's actions in Gaza could ultimately lose him the general election, others, including Biden campaign officials, argued that the result matched similar uncommitted movements in 2008 and 2012. In March 2024, Listen to Michigan announced it was expanding into a national operation.
Abandon Biden movement
Abandon Biden was originally started in Minnesota but has since spread to other swing states, with the goal of preventing a second-term Biden presidency. Many in the Abandon Biden movement have argued that Biden cannot undo damages, even if he called for a ceasefire and some within the movement have argued even for voting for Republicans in order to deny Biden a victory and to force both parties to pay attention to their cause, although others said they would never vote for Trump and would instead write a third-party candidate or abstain. The Abandon Biden and Uncommitted campaigns were described as “twin movements” which were overlapping.Khalid Turaani, one of the leaders of the Abandon Biden movement, stated that "If you want to bet on brushing off this movement, good luck in November... We want to make sure that Joe Biden is going to be a one-term president, and we’ll make sure that his loss will be coupled with a disgrace of the genocide in Gaza."
During his campaign, Trump notably suggested total war in Gaza, deporting refugees from Gaza, revoking visas of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, and reinstituting a "Muslim ban", which many Democrats have argued would allow them to win Muslim votes. In addition, although Biden won many swing states by small margins, the Muslim American and Arab American proportion in most of those states constitutes a very small proportion of the electorate. Some commentators argued that small margins of victory in swing states may suggest that the groups could have outsized effects. Michigan is noted as among the swing states with more than 200,000 Muslim voters, and 300,000 Arab Americans, well exceeding Biden's vote margin in 2020, and some have pointed out that disapproval with the conflict could be spreading to other groups such as youth and progressives. An opinion video piece argued in the aftermath of Biden's first debate and subsequent calls to withdraw from the race that Biden's biggest issue was still engagement from Arab and Muslim voters in swing states such as Michigan.
2024 presidential primaries
Primary elections
After the Michigan result, organizers in several states launched similar campaigns, even though most states do not have a dedicated "uncommitted" option, which can make organizing a protest vote more difficult. Minnesota organizers launched a protest vote movement for "uncommitted" with only four days before the primary. The movement was able to improve on Michigan's vote share, winning over 18% of the vote and 11 delegates. After the 2024 Minnesota Democratic presidential primary, Minnesota governor Tim Walz took a sympathetic view toward those doing so to protest President Biden's handling of the war in Gaza, calling them "civically engaged". Walz said: "This issue is a humanitarian crisis. They have every right to be heard. These folks are asking for a change in course, they're asking for more pressure to be put on.... You can hold competing things: that Israel has the right to defend itself, and the atrocities of October 7 are unacceptable, but Palestinian civilians being caught in this... has got to end." Walz also said he supports a ceasefire in Gaza.In North Carolina, where no actual candidates made the ballot other than Biden, 12% voted for "no preference", which some sources attributed to groups protesting Biden's support for Israel. Several observes noted that although the movement had "spread to other base Democratic voters" besides Muslim Americans, results from Super Tuesday suggested the Democratic Party "continues to coalesce around Biden". A Black Muslim group called the Black Muslim Leadership Council worked towards supporting the uncommitted movement but argued they would not necessarily abandon Biden during the presidential election.
In Hawaii, the uncommitted vote achieved 455 votes, or nearly 29% of the vote total, which net the movement 6 delegates. This occurred despite that Hawaii did not appear to have any specific organized uncommitted movement organization. In Georgia, a coalition of multi-ethnic, multi-faith progressives launched a Listen to Georgia Coalition to replicate a similar protest movement. Because Georgia does not release write-in candidate results, a local news organization looked at blank ballots instead, finding 3% of Democratic primary voters had submitted blank ballots within 5 counties. An effort was organized in Washington, where uncommitted achieved slightly over 9% of the vote. In Kentucky, some of the 17.9% uncommitted vote was attributed to the protest vote movement. Rhode Island sent at least 1 uncommitted delegate. A "Vote No Preference" coalition in Massachusetts focused on pushing a No Preference vote. A similar effort had been replicated in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other states; however, few races after Super Tuesday have dedicated uncommitted options, and those which did not had few progressive, Muslim, or Arab American votes.