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By Sameea Kamal. CalMatters.
Across the United States, the effort to withhold votes from President Biden until he demands a permanent ceasefire in Gaza has caused some noise.
After Michigan, where 13 percent of Democrats voted “uncommitted,” 29 percent did so in Hawaii, 19 percent in Minnesota and 13 percent in North Carolina.
In California, more than six in ten likely voters support an immediate ceasefire, and some protesters have called on the Biden administration to cut off military aid to Israel.
But that didn’t fully translate to the ballot box. Efforts in California, where there was no “uncommitted” option on the ballot, were less cohesive than in other states, according to some community organizers.
California leaders of the Council on American-Islamic Relations political action committee urged Democratic voters to leave the presidential race blank and make sure to vote in other contests. Other voters were encouraged to vote for Democrat Marianne Williamson, and some were told to vote for Peace and Freedom Party candidate Cornel West, who supports a cease-fire.
“It’s always easier not to vote for someone than to vote for someone in protest,” said Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California.
Statewide, with more than 801 TP3T of projected votes counted as of Wednesday, Biden has won 89 percent of the vote in the Democratic presidential primary. That compares with nearly 100 percent in 2012, when Barack Obama ran against just three candidates registered for a second term.
The typical protest vote in past noncompetitive U.S. presidential primaries has been around 7 percent, according to the New York Times. Biden secured the party's nomination on Tuesday after primaries in other states.
But the equivalent of the “uncommitted” vote in California is harder to track.
Counties report results differently. For example, not all counties release “insufficient votes” — ballots with the race left blank — and some don’t release the total number of write-in votes right away. That includes counties with large Arab, South Asian or Muslim populations in general, like San Diego County. And not all of the blank votes, or votes in favor of Williamson, were in favor of a cease-fire.
Arbazz Mohammed, co-founder of Muslim Visionaries, a community organizing group based in the Inland Empire, said party election rules can make it difficult for voters to opt for less conventional options.
What can be gleaned from the numbers so far: In 39 counties for which data was available, more than 160,000 voters left the race blank out of more than 3.1 million ballots in the Democratic primary. Another 100,000 voted for Williamson or a write-in candidate.
An uphill road for protest votes
Whether voters have an “uncommitted” option depends on the political parties in each state. California is one of 25 states where Democrats do not have that option.
But there are other factors that make a protest vote challenging. Without significant resources, it's hard to succeed in a state the size of California, Grose said.
“It’s really hard to get on the airwaves, to get on social media, to really get the idea of protest voting to the attention of the vast majority of the electorate, because it’s such a big state,” he said.
It also takes time to get that message out, but the March presidential primary, rather than the usual June primary, made that difficult.
“California didn’t have that much time to get this campaign out to as many people as possible,” said Hena Zuberi, a board member of United Path America, a group now working to promote uncommitted voting in Maryland in its May primary. “So that’s something we’re trying to learn from … and get an early start here.”
But the biggest factor may be California's diversity: No racial or ethnic group makes up a majority of the population. And while it has a larger number of Arab Americans than Michigan, they make up a smaller share of the state's total population.
In addition to demographics, there is also some political diversity.
While California is perceived as extremely left-wing and progressive, aside from a few exceptions (including Bernie Sanders in 2020), the state has almost always supported the mainstream Democratic candidate in its primaries, Grose noted.
And while a majority of likely voters support a ceasefire, the Public Policy Institute of California poll finds Californians are more divided over U.S. military aid to Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Impact flashes
There were some pockets where more voters expressed their discontent.
In Los Angeles County, about 15 percent of Democrats did not vote for Biden, according to CalMatters’ analysis of votes counted so far. In Sacramento and San Bernardino counties, the total was more than 11 percent. In all three counties, nearly 100 percent of Democrats voted for Obama in 2012.
Mohammed, the community organizer, said that while voters knew it would be difficult to significantly swing the presidential race in California, they plan to focus on competitive district races in the general election.
That includes the race for Congressional District 41 between Republican Rep. Ken Calvert and Democrat Will Rollins, one of the races that could be key to determining which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.
Rollins is about 22,000 votes behind Calvert in the primary. If Democrats want to make gains in the general election, Mohammad says the party will need to negotiate with voters in the district, which has a growing Muslim community — not all of whom are Arab Americans but who share a concern about U.S. policy on the Gaza war. Exact numbers are hard to come by, since the Census is prohibited from asking about religion. But the Islamic Society of Corona Norco, located in the district, serves at least 6,000 congregants.
“Whether we’re going to vote for Will or not, and that’s happening in a lot of other races, from the congressional level to the state level, and in local races as well,” Mohammed said. “If there’s a decent population of Muslims … and they come out to vote, it could hurt or help.”
Overall, about six in ten adults in competitive electoral districts support a ceasefire, according to PPIC.
On Saturday, President Biden called for a six-week ceasefire during Ramadan and an exchange of hostages and prisoners, following his State of the Union address last week when he announced a new effort to deliver humanitarian aid by sea.
Meanwhile, for Californians with family in Gaza, political organizing continues with the constant specter of humanitarian crisis.
“You feel guilty because, you know, my taxpayers’ money and American bombs are killing my people,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Sacramento and Central Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It’s a very, very difficult situation, especially in Ramadan. Ramadan has just started. And I can’t even imagine what my family and my people are going through right now when they’re starving and children are dying of malnutrition.
“It’s like a nightmare that never ends.”
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You may be interested in: “The conflict in Gaza is neither religious nor racial, it is a position based on values”: Camilo Pérez Bustillo, executive director of the National Guild of Lawyers
