Twenty-year-old Taslima Aboubaker cast her first vote ever in a presidential race Tuesday.
Her choice? “Uncommitted.”
Taslima, who is Muslim, voted “uncommitted” on the Democratic-Farm-Laborer (DFL) ballot in Tuesday’s presidential primary election because she disagrees with President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. She hopes her vote will persuade the president to call for a permanent ceasefire after losing support in primary elections across the country.
“Hopefully it causes a domino effect that the president can’t ignore,” said Taslima, who voted at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.
Taslima was swayed by the national Abandon Biden campaign, which is being led locally by high-profile Muslim leaders, including a University of Minnesota professor and leaders from the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Some local politicians, including Minneapolis City Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai and St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalai, have also urged voters to mark “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary.
Biden’s support of Israel’s war against Hamas prompted the backlash from his own base. More than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since the conflict started last October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Taslima paid close attention to the Abandon Biden effort in Michigan, which worked with a broad coalition of like-minded organizations and advocates to urge Democrats to vote “uncommitted.” More than 100,000 Michigan voters cast an “uncommitted” ballot last week in a rebuke of Biden. Taslima hoped for similar results in Minnesota.
Democratic voters’ sentiments ran the gamut in the Twin Cities Tuesday. Some marked “uncommitted,” but planned to vote for Biden in the fall anyway, presuming that he would win his party’s nomination to run in the November 5 presidential election against the Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump. Others said they would never vote for Biden under any circumstance, and some reluctantly voted for Biden.
Many seemed to share one thing: a lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic incumbent.
“It’s Trump the Treasonous and Genocide Joe,” said Kevin Pollard, who reluctantly cast a vote for Biden in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood over the lunch hour. “I’m not a huge fan, but we’ve got to live here, so, you know, you make the right decision.”
The day marked a milestone for Pollard, 18, who cast his first vote ever in an election. He came to the polls with his sister, Lena Pollard, 24, who also voted for Biden. She was reluctant as well, referring to Biden’s support and funding of the war against Hamas as “genocide.” But she fears a second Trump term.
“I think people have a better choice [in Biden],” Lena Pollard said, “because God knows if Trump gets elected, that’ll just be another disaster. I just think if we go that route again, people don’t understand how worse it will be. It’ll be worse than the storming into the Capitol.”
Biden and Trump are leading their primary races across the country.
Abdirizak Bihi, a well-known community advocate in Cedar-Riverside, spent Tuesday encouraging people in his community to get out and vote. Most people he talked to weren’t planning to vote, he said.
Many were unaware that they could vote uncommitted, he said, adding that once he informed them of that choice, they became more willing to head to the polls.
Bihi predicted that many Democrats in Minnesota would mark their ballots uncommitted Tuesday. Those voters want a ceasefire, and want the U.S. government to commit to donating food and medicine to the people of Gaza, he said.
Bihi added that regardless of the United State’s response to the war, he’s urging people to vote Democrat this fall, even if the candidate is Biden.
“On a daily basis, I work with refugee families,” Bihi said. “This administration is the only one that will help you bring your families here.”
Bihi would not reveal how he voted in the Tuesday primary, stating simply that he voted “Democrat.”
Hassan Abdel Salam, a Minnesota member of the Abandon Biden national coalition, said the group spent the last few weeks urging Minnesotans to vote uncommitted in the primary.
“We’ve been organizing to the fullest extent,” said Salam, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. “We’ve been speaking at the mosques. Our phone banks have been on fire.”
Salam spent the afternoon with Abandon Biden supporters handing out fliers to passers-by in Cedar-Riverside. He said the Abandon Biden campaign doesn’t have a goal for the number of uncommitted votes cast in Minnesota, and will encourage voters in swing states to abstain from voting for Biden in upcoming primaries.
The campaign then plans a big push into the general election, and is looking into endorsing a third party candidate like Jill Stein or Cornel West, Salam said.
Salam said he’s well aware that the effort could lead to another Trump presidency. Salam said he is anti-Trump, disliking him so much during his presidency that he rarely uttered his name out loud.
“I find him distasteful,” Salam said of Trump. “He prevented our friends and family and colleagues from entering the country. But Mr. Biden killed them.”
A vote for Biden this fall would “reward” that behavior, Salam reasoned.
“Four years under any Republican is not comparable to one day in Gaza,” he said.
The message wasn’t enough to move every Muslim voter in the area. Ali Dulae, 59, marked uncommitted on his ballot, hoping it will send a message to Biden on his policies supporting Israel. But the longtime Democrat said he will vote for Biden this fall if he is the Democratic Party nominee.
“I will never go to the Republican side,” Ali said. “I am always a Democrat.”
Abdulahi Abdile voted for Biden in the primary despite his disapproval of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
“I don’t like what he’s doing outside of the country, but I voted for him because I prefer what he’s doing inside the country,” Abdulahi said.
While many Abandon Biden members have focused their messaging on the primary elections, some say they will not vote for Biden this November under any circumstance.
“I don’t think there is anything this administration can do to move me as a voter,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, an organizer with the Abandon Biden team. “We have gone beyond that point.”
The Abandon Biden effort grew out of a long-brewing sentiment that Muslim voters were ignored well before the Israel-Hamas war, Mohamed said. It dates back to former President George W. Bush’s War On Terror, former President Barack Obama’s Countering Violent Extremism FBI Task Force, and Trump’s travel bans against Muslim majority countries, among other issues, Mohamed said.
Biden’s support of funding Israel’s attacks on Gaza with U.S. tax dollars is the latest example of anti-Muslim bipartisan policies, he said.
“Muslims fall on both sides of the aisle, but we’ve always drawn the short end of the stick,” Mohamed said
It’s important, Mohamed said, that Muslims don’t always have to squint their eyes or plug their noses every time they cast a ballot in an election.
“We shouldn’t have to choose the lesser of two evils,” he said. “We as Americans should be able to vote for somebody who is conscious of being a global citizen.”
And if the effort leads to a second Trump term in the White House? Speaking for himself, Mohamed said it’s worth the risk.
“We’ve seen Trump; we’ve survived Trump,” Mohamed said. “I would rather myself struggle with four more years of Trump than having innocent women and children get carpet bombed like we have seen over the past five months. That is a reality that I’m willing to go through.”
Taslima, the 20-year-old who cast her first vote in a presidential race Tuesday, isn’t sure whether she’ll vote for Biden in November if he wins the Democratic nomination as expected.
“At this moment, I can’t see myself voting for him,” she said. “But if he changes his position, I could see myself doing so. Preferably, I would want another candidate.”
