Wisconsin's 'uninstructed' voters send Biden a strong message on the war in Gaza

The movement to protest President Biden at the primary ballot box in response to his handling of the war in Gaza exceeded its own expectations in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the "uninstructed" option on Democratic presidential primary ballots has garnered more than 47,000 votes, according to results from The Associated Press. That's just over 8 percent of the Democratic presidential primary vote counted so far.

Those margins may change as the final votes are counted.

As expected, Biden won his party's presidential primary in Wisconsin on Tuesday, according to race call by The Associated Press, and is already considered his party's presumptive nominee.

But organizers, who said they wanted to send a message to Biden to change course before November, set a goal to get at least 20,000 people in Wisconsin to vote "uninstructed."

A close race boosts voters' message

That's about equal to Biden's margin of victory over former President Donald Trump in Wisconsin four years ago. Polls indicate another close race between the two men this year.

"We have blown his last margin of victory out of the water," said Listen to Wisconsin spokesperson Heba Mohammad after watching Tuesday's results. "He needs to be paying attention and calling for an immediate, permanent cease-fire, as soon as possible."

Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, says the president is listening and his party is working to gain their support.

"I think that the message from so many of these voters is that they want to be able to vote for Joe Biden this November. They just don't want this heartbreaking tragedy to continue."

Wikler says by engaging with voters he hopes to convince them that Biden is the