More than 60,000 Democratic voters in Pennsylvania chose not to vote for Joe Biden in the battleground state’s presidential primary this week, instead returning their ballots with a write-in candidate.
The wave of comments amounted to 5.6% of the Keystone State primary vote, or 60,271 votes, according to the Associated Press. generally not tracked write.
Uncommitted PA, a coalition of individuals and groups in the state opposed to Mr. Biden’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas, called on Democratic voters ahead of Tuesday’s election to express their dissatisfaction with the incumbent. “No,” he urged them to state in writing.
The group celebrated the primary results as a “massive write-in victory.”
“Uncommitted PA believes the primary election results will be a strong indicator of voter sentiment in the November election,” the group said in a statement. “Pennsylvania voters feel conflicted about voting for Biden, as write-in and undervotes show.”
Nearly 130,000 posts and votes were cast across the state for Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who suspended insurrectionist activity at the White House earlier this year.
“Biden won the federal state in 2020 by just 80,000 votes,” Uncommitted PA noted. “In 2016, Trump won by just 44,000 votes. Both margins of victory were obscured by the total non-Biden votes in yesterday’s Democratic primary.”
“We have sent a clear message to the key battleground state of Pennsylvania: To secure victory in our state in November, Biden must make significant changes in policy on Gaza. .”
It is unclear how many of the write-in votes were “uncommitted.”
Unlike other states, Pennsylvania does not offer voters an “uncommitted” option on their ballots.
It could take weeks for counties to report responses to write-in ballots, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Under Pennsylvania election law, some counties can also choose not to report write-in votes other than those cast by “individuals.” outlet notes.
“If a write-in vote is cast for something other than a person, counties have the option of reporting the write-in vote in a category labeled ‘scattered,'” a Pennsylvania Department of State spokesperson said. “Therefore, if a particular post was not cast as a ‘person’, we will most likely never know what that post said.”
Biden faces similar protest votes in many states this primary cycle.
In the battleground state of Michigan, 100,000 secret ballots were cast in the state’s Democratic primary in March to protest the president’s rejection of calls for a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
This total amounted to 13% of the vote and gave Michigan’s independents two delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August.
In Minnesota, nearly 19% of Democratic primary voters cast a secret ballot in last month’s election, for a total of more than 45,900 people. The campaign received 11 delegates from Biden.
In the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary earlier this month, more than 48,000 “no instructions” votes were cast, also in protest of Biden’s handling of the Middle East conflict, for a vote share of 8.3%.
Pennsylvania’s dedication comes amid a close race between Biden and former President Donald Trump in the state, which will contest 19 electoral votes in November.
According to a Fox News poll released last week, the two candidates are tied in a head-to-head race with 48% support each.
Among the third-party candidates, Mr. Trump beat Mr. Biden 44% to 42%.
