Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

‘Everything Is Different’: Long-Time Dem Voter Tells MSNBC Reporter He Doesn’t ‘Feel’ Biden Should ‘Represent Me’

No featured image available

A self-described Democratic voter in Michigan told a MSNBC reporter he was voting “uncommitted” during Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary, questioning if President Joe Biden could “represent” him

Democratic and Republican primary voters are casting ballots in Michigan’s presidential primary Tuesday, which Biden and former President Donald Trump are expected to win. Some liberal voters and Arabs have been saying they will vote for “uncommitted” to “punish” Biden for his support for Israel.

“I’ve never voted anything but Democrat in the last I would say 10 years or 12 years,” Ramsey Cassell told a MSNBC reporter. “But this year, everything is different. Like I don’t feel that I want President Biden to represent me. And then — especially after the most recent policies, I think it’s a great idea to vote uncommitted to send that message and try to at least trigger a change.”

WATCH:

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan called on Democrats to vote for an uncommitted slate of delegates in protest of Biden’s support for Israel on Feb. 18. She made a robocall pushing for “uncommitted” votes on behalf of a group tied to independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and made a video statement expressing pride in voting “uncommitted,” posted by the group Listen To Michigan on X.

Other Democratic voters have said they won’t vote for Biden, citing the ongoing Israel-Gaza War. Israel launched military operations in Gaza in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, during which the radical Islamic terrorist group killed over 1,200 people and took over 200 hostages.

“You cannot keep killing people with our money and just keep thinking that, oh, we are stupid enough to elect you again because we will fall in line, we will forget,” Farah Khan, a co-founder of “Abandon Biden,” told MSNBC’s Yasmin Vossoughian during a Thursday panel. “How can — like, this is an insult to me as a voter.”

Biden beat Trump by over 40 points in Wayne County, where Arabs are 54% of the population in the city of Dearborn in the 2020 election, helping him win Michigan by 154,000 votes after Trump carried the state in the 2016 election. Activists started the Abandon Biden campaign in December after Biden failed to call for a ceasefire.

Trump has a four-point lead over Biden in Michigan, according to a EPIC/MRA poll conducted Feb. 13-18. Trump currently leads Biden by 2.1% in the RealClearPolitics average of general election polls for a head-to-head matchup, a lead that grows to 3% when Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included.