More than 12% of North Carolina Democratic voters eschewed Biden to vote ‘No Preference’ in March 5 primary

(WGHP) — Pres. Joe Biden had no rivals in the North Carolina Democratic primary, but that didn’t stop more than 12% of Democratic primary voters from voting against him.

With numbers in for all precincts according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections unofficial results, Biden won 606,302 votes, or 87.32% of the total. The remaining 88,021 voters, or 12.68%, voted “No Preference.”

By contrast, only 0.69% voted “No Preference” in the North Carolina Republican presidential primary. Former President Donald Trump earned 73.86% of the vote, and United Nations Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley earned 23.32%.

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Former Pres. Barack Obama faced a similar voting base as he ran unopposed in North Carolina for the right to fight for a second term in 2012. Obama won that race in North Carolina by 79.23%. The remaining 200,810 voters selected “No Preference,” accounting for 20.77% of the vote.

Trump, fighting against two other candidates in a primary for his second term in 2020, won the North Carolina Republican primary by 93.53% with 2.5% going to “No Preference,” 2.04% going to Joe Walsh and 1.93% going to Bill Weld.

Slim pickings in North Carolina

While Biden has challengers for the nomination in other states, the North Carolina Democratic Party submitted only Biden’s name for inclusion on the ballot, and the NCSBE unanimously voted to stick with the party’s decision.

This left U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), Project Angel Food founder Marianne Williamson and political commentator Cenk Uygur off the ballot. Williamson has dropped out of the race. Cenk has largely failed to be approved on state primary ballots as he is a naturalized U.S. citizen and not a natural-born citizen.

“To get on the ballot, you need to have donors in the state and be actively campaigning in the state. Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson haven’t been here this cycle. This is the standard that we have used in all previous cycles,” NCDP spokesperson Tommy Mattocks told WNCN.

Other states

This is not the first state to see a noticeable portion of the Democratic primary voters vote against all Democratic presidential candidates on their ballot. While it's impossible to know what motivated each vote, this election cycle did see the launch of a movement to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary in an effort to pressure Biden to call for an unconditional cease-fire in Gaza, according to the New York Times.

In Michigan, the Feb. 27 primary saw about 13.2% percent of Democratic primary voters, more than 100,000 people, choose “uncommitted," according to the Associated Press with 99% of votes counted. Biden won with 81.2% of the vote and the rest went to other candidates.

On March 5, in addition to North Carolina, five other states held Democratic primaries including the option to vote "Uncommitted" (Alabama, Colorado, Tennessee and Minnesota) or "No Preference" (Massachusetts).

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With 99% of the vote in for Alabama and Tennessee, 98% for Minnesota and 93% for Massachusetts as of publication time according to the Associated Press, here's what we saw: About 6.0% in Alabama, about 7.9% in Tennessee and about 18.9% in Minnesota voted "Uncommitted." About 9.4% in Massachusetts voted "No Preference."

Biden led with 89.5% in Alabama, 92.1% in Tennessee, 70.7% in Minnesota and 82.9% in Massachusetts.

We did not include Colorado in the above breakdown as only 79% of votes have been counted as of publication time.

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