More than 1 in 5 Wisconsin Democrats said that Israel’s war in Gaza is impacting their vote in the state’s primary on Tuesday, while 71 percent said they strongly support an immediate and permanent ceasefire, according to a new poll released on Monday.
Eleven percent of respondents said President Joe Biden’s handling of the war will impact their vote in November if he does not change course and another nearly 14 percent said it could. Nearly 5 percent, meanwhile, said their vote has been impacted regardless of a change in policy.
The poll was commissioned by Listen to Wisconsin, a campaign to mobilize protest votes during the battleground state’s primary in order to push the White House to change course on its support for the war on Gaza. According to the survey, which was conducted by Poll Progressive Strategies, nearly 26 percent of Wisconsin Democrats support that campaign, which would have voters cast a ballot for “Uninstructed delegation” rather than a candidate.
Reema Ahmad, a Palestinian and Muslim American organizer with Listen to Wisconsin, said that the poll results reflect that a significant proportion of Wisconsin Democrats’ primary votes “are determined by deep opposition to the White House policy in Gaza.”
“This is a serious threat to Biden’s chances in Wisconsin if he does not meet voter’s demands and impose a permanent, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire,” Ahmad told The Intercept. “Less than 1% of the vote determines an election in Wisconsin. Uninstructed Wisconsin voters in the Democratic Primary are sending a message that we demand serious steps towards peace.”
In 2020, Biden won Wisconsin by some 20,000 votes — an even thinner percentage margin than Donald Trump won the state in 2016. Campaign organizers hope that the Tuesday primary will yield at least as many “uninstructed” votes.
The “Uncommitted” campaign launched in Michigan, another electorally crucial state for Biden, where more than 100,000 voters cast an “uncommitted” ballot in the state’s February primary. Similar campaigns have been run in multiple other states. In Minnesota, 18.8 percent of voters cast their ballots for “uncommitted,” while roughly 10 percent did so in each of Washington, Missouri, and Colorado.
The Wisconsin poll also found that just under half of Democrats in the state strongly or even somewhat approve of Biden’s handling of the war. 65 percent of respondents under the age of 29 said they strongly disapprove of it; only 16 percent somewhat approved, while 0 percent strongly approved. 100 percent of voters below the age of 29 said they strongly or somewhat approve an immediate and permanent ceasefire (93.5 percent saying they strongly do).
While political pundits have repeatedly dismissed the Uncommitted campaign as representing only voters who would not vote for Biden anyhow, or ones who don’t represent a meaningful current in the party apparatus, 69 percent of survey respondents voted for the incumbent in the 2020 primaries. Just 13 percent had voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Waleed Shahid, a Democratic political strategist who has advised Uncommitted campaigns in numerous states, said that the poll signals a fracture within Biden’s party. “With margins likely mirroring 2016 rather than 2020, Biden cannot risk alienating tens of thousands of his own voters over Gaza as November approaches.”