More than 40,000 “no-instruction” votes were cast in Tuesday’s Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary in protest of President Biden’s handling of the Gaza conflict.
Biden, 81, was still on track to win the Badger State, but the number of protest votes was twice the threshold that movement organizers had hoped to reach.
The president received 87.9% of the vote, but nearly 9% voted “no instruction” and more than 3% chose to vote for Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who withdrew from the race last month. did.
“Wisconsin: 43,090 undirected votes, 85% reporting rate. More than double our goal!” “Let’s hear Wisconsin’s story” campaign published.
The campaign is backed by 21 local, statewide, and national grassroots advocacy groups and dozens of faith leaders and elected officials, and the campaign is backed by Biden’s “Unmitigated Action in Gaza.” He called on Wisconsin residents to vote “without instruction” in protest of “continued support for violence.”
Wisconsin, a key battleground state, was narrowly won by Biden in 2020.
The group’s goal of 20,000 votes is based on Biden’s landslide victory over former President Donald Trump in the Badger State in the last presidential election.
Biden faced a similar protest vote in March in the battleground state of Michigan, where the Democratic primary was contested over the president’s rejection of calls for a permanent cease-fire in Israel’s war against Hamas. 100,000 blank votes were cast.
This total amounted to 13% of the vote and gave Michigan’s independents two delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August.
In Minnesota, about 19% of Democratic primary voters cast secret ballots last month, for a total of more than 45,900. The campaign received 11 delegates from Biden.
Both Michigan and Minnesota have significant Muslim and Arab American populations.
Biden’s support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza caused his support among voters to plummet.
A John Zogby Strategies poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute last October found that only 17.4% of Arab American voters said they would vote for Biden in 2024.
The same poll in 2020 showed Biden’s approval rating among Arab Americans was 59%.
