Have Philly’s “Uncommitted” & Arab-American Voters Found New Hope With Harris-Walz?
Lauren Abunassar
When Kamala Harris officially launched her presidential campaign in late July, many American voters saw it as an injection of hope and renewed vigor in an increasingly close and embittered battle for the White House. She’s the younger candidate. She’s vowed to lower drug costs, forgive student loans, and restore women’s right to reproductive healthcare. But, as Harris has yet to call for an arms embargo on Israel, or make any public commitments significantly distinct from Biden’s approach to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, many “Uncommitted” and Arab-American voters in Philadelphia remain hesitant to place their hope in Harris.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris (Left) and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (Right) arrive at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on August 6, 2024. (Photo by Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via AP)
Once again, Pennsylvania is a critical swing state this election. Rather than casting their votes for Biden, an estimated 16,000 Democrats in Philadelphia wrote in “Uncommitted” or opted for another choice this Primary, signifying a broader dissatisfaction with Biden, largely due to his handling of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Yet, the Democratic Party has continued to remain broadly apathetic to voters’ and Arab-Americans’ concerns. At last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Democrats refused to allow a Palestinian-American speaker on the convention’s main stage. They did, however, welcome a speech given by the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th.
While “Uncommitted” activists largely supported the Democrat’s decision to let a hostage’s family speak at the convention, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rejected activists’ request for a Palestinian speaker. The DNC was widely denounced as hypocritical, invalidating, and grossly indifferent to the needs and desires of voters and Arab-Americans aching for a voice to speak on the ongoing suffering of Palestinians. In response to the DNC’s decision, “Uncommitted” voters staged a sit-in outside of the Chicago United Center, where the convention was being held.
Uncommitted PA called on voters to write in "uncommitted" rather than cast their vote for President Biden during the 2024 Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary earlier this year. Photo: Uncommitted PA.
“This Palestinian speaker situation is a mistake on the party’s end,” Abbas Alawieh, a delegate from Michigan and co-founder of the Uncommitted National movement, told Al Jazeera. “We are forcing a conversation about a critical issue: Palestinian human rights.”
Other vocal ceasefire advocates have similarly acknowledged the cloud this further casts over the Harris campaign and Democrats’ efforts to ordain her as a new symbol of hope.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress , was one such critic.
“[Democratic leadership] wants to erase us,” Tlaib said. “They want to pretend that Palestinians and the voices that we have and the harm and the hurt [don’t] exist.”
While Harris may still have an opportunity to earn back votes Biden irreparably lost as a result of his full-throated support for Israel, one can look to Philadelphia’s “Uncommitted” voters’ hesitance and increasing frustration as a reflection of the hurdles the Democratic Party has to cross to win over dismayed voters — and in particular, Arab-Americans.
“We want to make sure our community is voting and not relinquishing their voting power because they’re concerned about the presidential race.”
Anger towards the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s invasion and bombing of the Gaza strip, which has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, wounded over 90,000, and internally displaced over 1.9 million, first sparked the “Uncommitted” movement. It began with a grassroots advocacy campaign, “Listen to Michigan,” which mobilized over 100,000 Michigan voters to cast “Uncommitted” ballots in the Democratic primary. While Michigan has the highest number of Arab-Americans in the United States, the national implications of these efforts were clear.
This past Spring, Penn students made headlines when they created a Gaza solidarity encampment on campus to protest Israel’s ongoing bombing of Gaza. Some voted "Uncommitted" in the Democratic presidential primaries. Photo: H Tenzer
Abbas Alawieh, a Lebanese-American and former Capitol Hill Chief of Staff, and Layla Elabed, a southeast Michigan resident and Palestinian-American, spearheaded the Uncommitted National Movement to continue expanding Michigan’s efforts to pressure politicians and policymakers to call for a permanent ceasefire. This determination to force policy change fueled a tidal wave of “Uncommitted” votes during the 2024 Democratic primary election, with 650,000 Democrats writing in “Uncommitted,” or taking a similar stance on their ballots — that is, refusing to endorse a candidate who will not call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. More recently, it inspired activists to launch an “Abandon Kamala Harris” campaign at this year’s Democratic National Convention.
According to Dr. Ahmet Tekeligolu, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Philadelphia chapter, Harris’ presence at the top of the presidential ticket has not fully assuaged a desire to protest the broader apathy Democrats have expressed in the face of the genocide in Gaza. On an advocacy level, CAIR is working to reach voters who, Tekeligolu said, have a real desire to punish a Democratic Party that has largely enabled and supported the genocide at the local and national level.
“They’re not going to just give their votes to Harris, who in her VP role, has contributed to what is going on in Gaza.”
“We are concerned this is going to impact voter turnout and down-ballot races that are important in our communities,” Tekeligolu told Al-Bustan. “We want to make sure our community is voting and not relinquishing their voting power because they’re concerned about the presidential race… There are very important races in addition to the presidential race.”
Just this past June, the Pennsylvania State Senate passed Senate Bill 1260, also known as the Stand with Israel Act, with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. The act prohibited the State Treasurer, the State Employees' Retirement System, the Public School Employees' Retirement System and the Pennsylvania Municipal Retirement System from boycotting or divesting from Israel. The bill also prohibited funding to higher education institutions engaging in such boycott or divestment efforts. Decisions like these have further estranged Arab-American voters from the electoral process.
Still, Tekeligolu believes that Harris’s decision to not choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her Vice-Presidential candidate stoked hope for many uncertain Arab-American and young voters. After all, Shapiro has been a steadfast supporter of Israel for decades. In May, he directed the University of Pennsylvania to shut down their pro-Palestine encampment. The encampment called on the university to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel until Israel ends its occupation and colonization of Arab land, recognizes the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and respects Palestinians’ right of return in accordance with UN resolution 194. A resurfaced 1993 college op-ed also featured Shapiro calling Palestinians too “battle-minded” to coexist in Israel.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) speaking at a Harris/Walz campaign event at the Liacouras Center at Temple University in Philadelphia. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA (via AP Images)
Choosing Shapiro as VP may have undercut any hopes that Harris might approach the issue of Gaza and Palestine with more empathy than Biden. While Tekeligolu noted that Harris’ decision not to choose Shapiro “settled the souls,” of many Arab-American voters in Philadelphia, he knows there is still progress to be made.
“There are still members of the community who are very clearly saying: ‘We are the people who are going to keep Trump out of office,’” Tekeligolu told Al-Bustan. “They’re not going to just give their votes to [Harris], who in her VP role, has contributed to what is going on in Gaza. There has to be change.”
The impact of the Uncommitted Movement was heartening for voters like Temple University law student and organizer, Aniqa Raihan, especially when Biden dropped out of the race.
“There was a sense of hope, a feeling that maybe someone was listening, and also a sense that we [“Uncommitted” voters] did this,” Raihan told Al-Bustan.
Since Harris has taken the ticket, Raihan said, the optimism has come and gone in waves. First, Raihan was heartened by Harris’ seemingly strong response to Netanyahu’s visit to Congress in July. But then, when Governor Shapiro seemed poised to take on the VP nomination, Raihan felt defeated again. And when Harris finally chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her VP, the relief returned. Still, she’s more inclined to believe the VP decision speaks more to Harris’ political stratagem than her moral compass. And it is partly why she has yet to commit to Harris.
“I think it is true that Harris cares about winning the election,” Raihan said. “I think that came through in the selection of a VP candidate that was not Shapiro. What I’m less sure about is if she actually cares about saving lives and ending this genocide and apartheid.”
Until Harris can offer some definitive sign that she does care about ending the genocide, rebuilding relationships with Arab-American and “Uncommitted” voters — not to mention the pro-ceasefire voters who constitute roughly 80% of her Democratic base — may be an uphill battle. That is to say, if the Democratic National Committee hasn’t permanently estranged Arab-American voters from this election altogether.
In May, activists marched along Market Street in Philadelphia, urging President Biden to call for a ceasefire. Video: H Tenzer
Palestinian-American Reem Rosenhaj, who lives in Philadelphia and is a spokesperson for No Ceasefire, No Vote PA (NCNV), is among those still-uncommitted voters. She joined NCNV back in May, eager to build on the work of Uncommitted PA. The grassroots campaign continues to collect pledges from Pennsylvania voters who refuse to vote for Harris if she doesn’t call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza or commit to instituting an arms embargo against Israel.
For Rosenhaj, Harris has much to prove before she will earn back her vote.
“Regardless of Harris’ statements calling for a ceasefire, her platform has not changed,” Rosenhaj told Al-Bustan. Just this past week, the U.S. pledged an additional $3.5 billion in military aid to Israel. “NCNV has always been pretty clear that regardless of who the candidate is, we are people who cannot vote for a candidate supporting genocide.”
For many, Rosenhaj notes, the fight is personal. “I don’t know a single Palestinian-American who doesn’t at least know someone who has had family members killed in this genocide,” Rosenhaj said. Her own family history bears on her decision-making come voting time. Half of Rosenhaj’s family is Palestinian. The other half is Jewish and came to the U.S. to escape the pogroms in Eastern Europe.
Eric Suter-Bull holds a "Vote Uncommitted" sign outside a voting location at Saline Intermediate School for the Michigan primary election in Dearborn, Michigan this past February. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Though Rosenhaj is hesitant to fully commit to Harris, she believes that continuing to gather pledges with NCNV is one way to give Harris a path to earn back votes that Biden had undoubtedly lost. It’s also a way to restore a sense of optimism in a voting base that’s felt consistently neglected. For Rosenhaj, Josh Shapiro’s VP loss affirmed that hint of optimism.
“This tells me that the 80% of Democratic voters who support a ceasefire have power,” Rosenhaj said. “Now the question is, will we continue to build power by holding Harris and Biden-Harris accountable to the vast majority of their base who want to see a ceasefire in Gaza?”
For voters like Aniqa Raihan, the refusal to commit to Harris is a moral imperative. “Every time I think about voting as harm reduction, a new story comes out of Gaza that is so heinous I could not dream it.”
The question of harm reduction, or the idea that we must choose between the lesser of two evils for the greater good, is something many voters are likely facing. The Biden vs. Trump race marked one of history’s most unpopular elections with both candidates having favorability ratings in the low 40s. Now, if Harris is regarded as an extension of Biden — an illusion reinforced by her similar foreign policy stance on Israel-Gaza — voters will have to consider voting not for a candidate they believe in, but for a candidate they believe will do the least damage.
It’s a kind of electoral impasse that feels especially grim in the face of the brutal reality on the ground in Gaza, a reality that voters are desperate to see acknowledged and validated by candidates like Harris.
Uncommitted PA declared a victory when over 120,000 Democrats in Pennsylvania reportedly wrote in "Uncommitted" on their ballot rather than vote for Biden. Photo: Uncommitted PA.
Just this August 11, Israel struck a mosque and school in Gaza and killed over 100 Palestinians, many of them children, elderly, and innocent men and women. Earlier this month, horrific news of widespread sexual abuse and rape of Palestinian prisoners by IDF soldiers arose online.
“These American politicians are parents. Family members. They obviously care about other people. The only reason I can rationalize them not caring about Palestinians is because they don’t see themselves in them. And I do,” Raihan told Al-Bustan. “But even if I didn’t, I would care because they are human beings.”
According to Raihan, voting for Harris as her current policy stands would feel like saying “I don’t care about that or that there are things that are more important than that. And I can’t think of what would be more important.”
While Philadelphia’s “Uncommitted” voters at large remain cautious about any optimism, many acknowledge there is some room to celebrate what feels like a movement win in terms of potentially impacting both Biden’s withdrawal and Josh Shapiro’s exclusion from the ticket.
“This is a Gen-Z–Millennial advocacy win,” 26-year-old Philadelphia-based Palestinian-American Jude Husein told Al-Bustan. “It’s important for the community to see that their voice does matter and can have an impact.”
Husein, who was born in Palestine and raised in Philadelphia, has served as the Pennsylvania Senate’s only Arab staffer since 2022. In 2021, she created Philadelphia’s first Palestinian-American Solidarity Day in 2021, and has since overseen state advocacy for Senator Art Haywood. Husein acknowledged that while Harris presents much of the same policy profile as Biden, she is trying harder to humanize Palestinians.
“It’s not enough,” Husein admitted. “People are still very disenchanted, but they’re using that. They’re using that to organize and fight back… It’s too soon to say if there is real optimism [in Harris] but there is a sense [from Arab-Americans] that if we’re going to lose, we’re at least going to lose while saying something.”
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
NOTE: This story was produced as part of the 2024 Elections Reporting Grant Program, organized by the Center for Community Media and funded by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Tow Foundation.
***
Lauren Abunassar is a Palestinian American writer and journalist. A Media Fellow at Al-Bustan, she holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MA in journalism from NYU. Her first book Coriolis was published as winner of the 2023 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize.