‘Biden needs to be pro-peace’: Michigan anti-war campaign hails huge vote tally

A last-minute push by anti-war activists to reject President Joe Biden over his unwavering support for Israel far exceeded expectations in the Michigan Democratic party primary on Tuesday night.

Leaders from the grassroots campaign, called Listen to Michigan, said ahead of the primary that they would count 10,000 “uncommitted” votes – roughly Trump’s winning margin in Michigan eight years ago – as a victory.

Instead they surpassed that goal by an order of magnitude, earning the support of more than 100,000 Democrats who checked the “uncommitted” box, and 13% of votes overall. That should weigh heavily on Democrats, who could lose the pivotal state – and even the presidency – in November if these sentiments persist. Biden won Michigan by about 150,000 votes in 2020 – less than 3% of the overall vote.

It remains to be seen how many of the Michigan voters who withheld their support from Biden during the primary will abandon the president in the general election, where he will most likely face former president Donald Trump, whose brash Islamophobia and policies targeting Muslims defined his 2016 campaign and early presidency.

“This is a victory of American democracy,” said former US congressman Andy Levin, addressing a crowd of Listen to Michigan supporters as the results trickled in last night. “There is no time to waste – we need a permanent ceasefire right now.” In 2022 Levin, a progressive Jewish politician, faced a primary opponent in a new district and lost. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) spent more than $4m to support his opponent.

Michigan is home to one of the largest concentrations of Arab and Muslim Americans in the US, many of them living in the greater Detroit area. Those voters formed an