LANSING, Michigan — Leaders of a democratic protest voting movement against the war between Israel and Hamas said on Thursday they would not support the vice president Kamala Harris ‘candidate for president, but strongly urged their supporters to vote against Donald Trump in november.
The “Uncommitted” movement drew hundreds of thousands of votes in the Democratic primaries earlier this year in protest of the presidential election. Joe Biden ‘s handling of the War between Israel and HamasThe group’s leaders urged the administration to change its policies on the conflict, warning that otherwise some Democratic voters might refrain from voting in November, particularly in swing states. Michigan.
Despite months of discussions with senior Democratic officials, discontent within the ranks of the protest votes only grew after the Democratic National Convention when they were refused a speaker on stage and other demands were not met.
Harris’ “unwillingness to change an unconditional gun policy or even make a clear campaign statement supporting the enforcement of existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to support her,” movement leaders said in a statement.
Group leaders also made clear in their statement that they strongly oppose supporters voting for Trump or a third-party candidate who “could inadvertently engineer a Trump presidency.” Instead, they urged voters to “register anti-Trump votes and vote on every ballot.”
“In our assessment, our movement’s best hope for change lies in expanding our anti-war organizing power, and that power would be severely undermined by a Trump administration,” the leaders said.
After the DNC failed to include a Palestinian-American speaker as requested, the group asked Harris’ campaign to respond by September 15 to its request for the vice president to meet with Palestinian-American families in Michigan to discuss their demands to halt arms sales to Israel and secure a permanent ceasefire. The group claims these demands have not been met.
The movement started in michigan when more than 100,000 voters checked “Uncommitted” in the state’s Democratic primary. The state is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, making them a key constituency as each presidential candidate tries to win the crucial battleground state.
Both nominees have actively sought to win over leaders in the greater Detroit metropolitan area Arabic American community. Last month, Harris met with the mayor of Dearborn, the nation’s largest Arab-American community, while Trump spoke Tuesday with the mayor of Hamtramck, a Muslim-majority city in metro Detroit, to ask for his support.