'Uncommitted' vote against Biden blows past goal in Minnesota's Democratic primary

A push from progressive Minnesotans and members of the Muslim community to get voters to check "uncommitted" in the state's Democratic presidential primary won nearly 46,000 votes on Tuesday, far surpassing their goal of 5,000 votes.

Organizers of the campaign declared victory Tuesday night, saying the result will send a message to President Joe Biden that large factions of his own party want him to support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

"We're doing this so President Biden knows Democrats have had enough of this endless support of a genocidal regime," Asma Mohammed, an organizer with the campaign, said Tuesday. "We've had enough with seeing broken bodies of Palestinian children every time we open our phones, and today we are showing him that Minnesota is on the side of justice and humanity."

The campaign is building on momentum from a similar push in Michigan, which earned more than 100,000 votes in the state's primary last week. Both Minnesota and Michigan were crucial states in Biden's 2020 victory.

While Biden overwhelmingly won the primary with more than 70% of the vote, the uncommitted votes came in second, earning nearly 19% of the vote and beating Minnesota DFL U.S. Rep. Dean Philips in his home state. Given their turnout, organizers said they will be able to send delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

"More votes than Dean Phillips!" activist Walter Fromm of Minneapolis said at Vote Uncommitted MN's watch party Tuesday night in a vacant storefront on Lake Street. "Let's go!"

Fromm said he made thousands of phone calls for the Biden campaign in 2020, but he and others who volunteered for Biden are angry with him now. "Everybody who worked with me then is voting uncommitted today," Fromm said.

A half dozen other Super Tuesday states also had a similar push for a protest vote against Biden. In North Carolina, more than 12% of voters selected "no preference," while more than 9% did the same in Massachusetts. "Noncommitted delegate" finished second place to Biden in Colorado's Democratic primary.

The Vote Uncommitted MN campaign launched a week before the primary and spent $20,000 on digital advertising, voter contact, organizing and operational costs.

At their watch party Tuesday, they snacked on cookies and paper cups of nuts, watching results update on the New York Times website. Every time the page updated, they cheered.

Yasmin Hirsi of Apple Valley said she was already disappointed that Biden had not been able to forgive student loans or protect abortion rights.

"This is like the breaking point for me," Hirsi said. Right now, she plans to sit out the November election. Hirsi worries Muslim voters will be blamed if Trump wins the general election. She hopes Biden will shift his policies instead of blaming voters.

In 2020, "uncommitted" got only 2,612 votes in Minnesota's Democratic presidential primary, compared with over 287,000 for Biden and 222,000 for Sen. Bernie Sanders.