Biden response to Michigan uncommitted vote sows doubts he listened

The protest vote organized against President Joe Biden this week in the Great Lakes State asked the president to “Listen to Michigan.”

But despite members of Biden’s administration meeting with Arab and Muslim American community leaders this month, the initial response from the president’s campaign to Michigan’s primary Tuesday did not directly acknowledge the number of Democrats who marked themselves “uncommitted” to express their opposition to his approach to the Israel–Hamas war.

Asked for her reaction late Tuesday night on live TV, Listen to Michigan campaign manager Layla Elabed, who had aimed for 10,000 Democrats to mark themselves as “uncommitted” before almost 101,000 did so, criticized Biden’s statement as negligent.

“To once again alienate the voices of his core constituency, largely who put him in the White House in 2020, because this community largely supported Biden, based on the promises he made during his campaign trail,” Elabed told CNN. “We know that [former President Donald] Trump is not a friend to our community, and we know that he is not a friend to the anti-war, pro-ceasefire community, but, right now, we are appealing to Joe Biden as our president to act now before he risks losing his core constituency come November.”