Voters Joined National Movement to Pressure Biden to Stop the Genocide on Gaza
ALBUQUERQUE, NM—Nearly 13,000 New Mexico voters sent a message at the ballot box last night to President Biden rejecting his policy of arming Israel during an ongoing genocide in Gaza by voting “uncommitted.” 12,849 registered Democrats from across the state checked the “uncommitted delegate/delegado no comprometido” box as part of the national uncommitted movement to pressure the Biden administration to stop providing weapons and diplomatic cover to Israel after more than 40,000 Gazans have been killed, mostly women and children, 70,000 wounded and untold thousands—200,000 many reputable sources estimate—missing under the rubble.
One campaign organizer, Rhi Mauldin, said, “We the people, the base of the Democratic Party, have heard the devastating cries, we have seen the horrific violence, and we have seen our leaders ignore it. So we came together as volunteers and joined a national movement to leverage local political power against genocide. We have now sent a message so loud that the democratic party cannot, and should not, ignore us any longer.”
74% of the delegates at the New Mexico Democratic Party Pre-Primary Convention voted in favor of the ceasefire resolution in March, yet Democratic elected officials have been excruciatingly slow to follow the lead of their base. Instead they repeatedly vote for more funding for Israel despite that funding violating not just international law but also
U.S. law.
Another organizer, Jane Yee, said, “Grassroots organizing is the key to our movement, especially how we mobilized working people, queer activists, and people of color. It was young people and people of color that got Biden into the White House; if he doesn’t listen to the constituency that elected him, he risks losing in November. Our communities are insisting that their message of hope, morality and decolonization must be heeded; we are no longer satisfied to simply vote for the ‘lesser of two evils.’”
Leila Salim, a Palestinian-American organizer, said, “Palestinians are not giving up, so we are not giving up either. Our campaign, our movement does not end here; we will continue to mobilize voters to fight for an end to U.S. weapons going to Israel and an end to the U.S. blocking diplomatic efforts at the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.”
Nationally, more than one million votes have been cast for uncommitted, earning Uncommitted 36 delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.