A top Biden campaign official is downplaying the potential effect of an effort to convince Michigan primary voters to cast ballots for “uncommitted” rather than the President.
Critics of Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war want Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the primary as a protest.
Over the weekend, Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) voiced support for the “uncommitted” campaign, becoming the most prominent Democratic official to support the campaign against the president.
There is also a separate effort by a political action committee to get Democratic voters to cast votes in Michigan’s Republican primary for former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who’s challenging former president Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.
Mitch Landrieu is the national Biden Campaign co-chair. The former mayor of New Orleans served for a couple years as a senior advisor to President Joe Biden on infrastructure before joining Biden’s reelection campaign.
Landrieu was in Flint Monday to meet with teachers and pastors and rally the President’s supporters ahead of next week’s Democratic presidential primary.
Landrieu says he’s not dismissing voters’ concerns, but it’s important to focus on what’s at stake in the election.
“Lots of folks seem to have this kind of 'fairy dust' theory that somehow the election is not going to be between Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” Landrieu told reporters.
Biden and Trump are both expected to easily win Michigan’s Democratic and Republican presidential primaries February 27.
Democratic Party opposition to Biden has trickled down to U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn), whose campaign has sputtered of late, including canceling campaign events in Michigan in recent days.
In addition to Haley and Trump, Republican voters have a choice of Texas pastor and businessman Ryan Binkley.
While Michigan Democrats are picking all their delegates to this summer’s national convention with their primary, most Michigan Republican national convention delegates will be chosen at a state party caucus in March.
