Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 10
The “uncommitted” movement to pressure US President Joe Biden to change his policy on Israel is headed to Minnesota, where activists hope a coalition of progressive Democrats and Muslim Americans will fuel a strong protest vote on Super Tuesday.
Minnesota is not a battleground state, given Democrats’ historic strength there, so any uncommitted vote won’t carry the same impact as Michigan’s unexpectedly large protest last week, which won two delegates for the Democratic National Convention in August.
Still the vote is being closely watched as a gauge of Biden’s strength within his own party.
“This will be another protest vote against Biden with the aim of stopping the war,” said Jaylani Hussein, co-chair of the Abandon Biden movement in Minnesota, one of several groups pushing the vote with phone banks, texting campaigns, and events in mosques and other community centers.
Biden, 81, faces low general approval ratings and concern about his age, as does Trump, 77. If Trump is reelected, he is expected to be a strong supporter of Israel and its right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Michigan results, where Biden won 81% of the vote, shows his “core group of supporters are still behind him,” said an official from the Biden campaign – which expects to see the same result from Minnesota.
Even with a protest vote, Biden is expected to sweep Democratic primaries in Minnesota and more than a dozen other states on March 5, also known as Super Tuesday, and secure the Democratic nomination in the coming weeks.
Minnesota hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972, though Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of winning in 2016. Biden won the state with over 233,000 votes in 2020.
‘COMPARE HIM TO THE ALTERNATIVE’
Biden campaign and many Democratic Party officials believe disaffected Democrats will ultimately support Biden in November when faced with the prospect of Trump.
Democrats, overall, support Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict by 61%, February polling by Harvard-Harris shows, although a Reuters/Ipsos February poll show 56% of Democrats prefer a president who doesn’t support military aid to Israel.
Source: Reuters
