Biden campaign official responds to “uncommitted” votes in Michigan primary

A Democratic presidential campaign official acknowledged that the “uncommitted” votes in the Michigan primary were a “substantial” message to President Joe Biden.

Mitch Landrieu, a former Biden administration senior adviser and current national co-chair for the president’s reelection campaign, responded to the “uncommitted” movement on CNN Tuesday night shortly after the president’s victory.

“Joe Biden had a really, really strong night tonight. You can’t cut it any other way than that,” Landrieu said during the CNN appearance. “That is not to say that the uncommitted vote wasn’t substantial.”

Progressives in Michigan had urged voters to withhold their support from Biden in the primary in protest of the president’s policies toward Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Biden’s support for Israel’s military so far has faced immense backlash from several key demographics of the Democratic electorate.

Biden is campaigning for a second term in the White House and has easily won every Democratic primary election of the 2024 presidential race, despite the protest vote in Michigan and being challenged for the party’s nomination by author Marianne Williamson and Representative Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat.

CNN called Michigan’s Democratic primary for Biden the moment polls closed at 9 p.m. local time. While the president garnered about 80.4 percent of the vote, “uncommitted” still amassed 13.8 percent, according to results from CNN at 11:10 p.m. Tuesday, which shows more than 45,000 Michigan residents had cast their ballots for “uncommitted.”

Pro-Palestinian critics of Biden were hoping to send him a warning in Michigan by withholding support and instead voting “uncommitted.” The movement earned the support of high-profile progressives, including Palestinian American Representative Rashida Tlaib.

Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, said in a video posted Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, that she was “proud” to pull a Democratic ballot and vote “uncommitted.”

Newsweek reached out via email on Tuesday night to representatives for Biden and Tlaib for comment.

However, according to Landrieu, Biden “has gotten the message” from voters, noting that the White House sent a handful of top administration officials earlier this month to meet with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Michigan to discuss the war in Gaza.

“This is a very complicated issue,” Landrieu said, adding that the president “continues to listen to this very difficult pain that community is going through all across the country, both in the Jewish community and the Muslim and the Palestinian community as well.”

The campaign official said, however, that when compared to the Republican primary front-runner—former President Donald Trump—Biden fared better in Michigan. As the Associated Press called the GOP primary race, Trump held a roughly 35-point lead on his remaining major challenger, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. When the race was called for Biden, the president had garnered about 78.5 percent of the primary vote, while “uncommitted” was up to 16.2 percent.

“The president believes that people ought to voice their opinion, people in Michigan are doing that, and of course, people across the country will continue to do that,” Landrieu told CNN. “And he will take that into consideration as he moves forward on this very complicated and difficult issue.”