‘Uncommitted’ movement to press Biden on Gaza lands in New Jersey

Many New Jersey Democrats who want to express their dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza will have a concrete way to do so when casting a vote in this year’s presidential primary.

In most of the state, Democrats will have an option on June 4 to essentially cast an “uncommitted” vote for president by choosing delegates to the Democratic National Convention who are on the ballot under the slogan “Justice for Palestine, Permanent Ceasefire Now.”

This type of protest vote gained steam after a push for Michigan Democrats to vote uncommitted in that state’s Feb. 27 primary resulted in more than 100,000 votes, representing 13% of the total. On March 5, about 50,000 Minnesota Democrats voted uncommitted, nearly 19% of the vote.

Isaac Jimenez, organizer with the North New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America, which is spearheading the effort here, said the group is “rejecting the giving away of our votes to people who will never meet our demands, or voting for the lesser of two evils.”

The group was able to land the slogan on the ballot in 18 of the state’s 20 delegate districts. There is no candidate attached to the slogan in New Jersey, but Jimenez said getting the pro-Palestine slogan in front of voters is key.

“We’re putting Palestine on the ballot,” he said. 

Presidential candidates are awarded delegates based on the results of the primaries, and those delegates go to their parties’ conventions to cast their votes. Biden has received 3,097 delegates — 1,968 are needed to win — and uncommitted has received 26 delegates, according to the Associated Press. 

Dan Cassino, political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said he’s not surprised the movement landed in the Garden State.

New Jersey is home to nearly 300,000 Muslims, a group that has signaled sharp disapproval of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza. Only 5% of American Muslims agree that the way Israel is carrying out its war in Gaza is acceptable, according to a Pew Research Center poll from March.

The state also has a progressive faction that feels left out of the political process, Cassino said. And while some moderate Democrats may be annoyed with this group of voters, he called it a positive development.

“A lot of Democrats who are very upset about Palestine and Israel have been saying, ‘We’re going to take off this election. We’re going to sit this one out.’ And that isn’t what we want — not showing up doesn’t make any difference. But getting people to turn out and vote for something, that’s a much more powerful symbolic show,” Cassino said. 

He also said this emphasizes the generational and ideological divide within the Democratic Party. Just 12% of Democratic voters 65 and up identify as progressive, while over 30% of those voters 35 and under identify as progressive, he said. 

Cassino said this is the first time he’s seen voters rally behind no candidate. And while he doesn’t think it’ll have enough of an impact to send a New Jersey delegate to the Democrats’ Chicago convention to vote for uncommitted, it’s still unclear what the primary ballot will look like as Rep. Andy Kim’s push to eliminate county-line ballots remains active.

If Kim is successful in getting the state’s counties to move toward office-block ballots — where candidates are grouped by office sought, instead of by the endorsement of party leaders — the uncommitted movement could yield more votes because they would be more visible on the ballot, he said.

He added that the Democratic Party will need to assess how to court younger voters without alienating members of the party who are more pro-Israel. 

“We are, as always in recent years, looking at a very close election, and a few voters here and there who would have voted for Democrats can potentially swing the election one way or the other,” he said. 

Jimenez said his group is focused on the June primary, not the November election, which will feature a top-of-the-ticket rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump. Primary results will show the Biden administration what he stands to lose in November if he doesn’t change his stance on Gaza, he said. 

“The message is that if Biden doesn’t turn his policy around, there is no vote in the November election,” he said.