Five Reasons You Should Vote Uncommitted

Whether you are a middle of the road Democrat or a socialist planning on leaving the Democratic Party, you should vote uncommitted (or similar) in your state primary.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a short essay after Marianne Williamson dropped out of the 2024 Presidential race. I was disappointed that progressives had failed to run and support a candidate to challenge President Biden in 2024. An uncommitted campaign is no replacement for a progressive challenger, but it is a better way to send a message than not voting at all. After getting some higher profile endorsements, from Andy Levin, Rashida Tlaib, and Beto O'Rourke, the recent “uncommitted” campaign has a real chance to put some pressure on the Biden administration to be more progressive.

Some will try to equate voting uncommitted to “throwing your vote away,” or supporting Donald Trump. You are voting uncommitted in a Democratic primary, so Donald Trump is of no consequence. And the Biden campaign reportedly does care about uncommitted votes, according to Politico the uncommitted vote in Michigan is causing panic in the Biden campaign.

The uncommitted campaign was created because of outrage over the Biden Administration's handling of the Israel-Hamas war. But I think that voting uncommitted should not just be a message about Israel, it should encompass a larger movement that feels President Biden has not lived up to his 2020 promises.

So, here are five reasons why, no matter your political space in the Democratic party, you should vote uncommitted (or similar) in your state's Democratic primary.

5) Biden is not doing enough to stop climate change

Doing something about Climate Change is something that has mainstream support. In 2023, the Pew Research Center found that 71% of Americans think that addressing climate change should be a priority for the President and Congress. Yet President Biden still has not done enough to address it. While President Biden did rejoin the Paris Climate Accords and required all major federal contractors to set targets for reducing their emissions, he also approved federal drilling permits at a higher rate than President Trump, held the largest-ever auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico’s history (and lied about why the auction was held), and approved the Willow project (which has been called a “carbon bomb”).

4) Biden hasn’t legalized Marijuana

In October 2022, President Biden announced that he was pardoning federal convictions of Marijuana possession and starting the process of potentially rescheduling marijuana’s status under the Controlled Substances Act from Schedule I to Schedule III. These were great first steps, but they didn't accomplish true legalization and decriminalization of marijuana. Instead, President Biden should be working to completely deschedule Marijuana which would effectively decriminalize it at the federal level. Marijuana legalization is something that has wide support. In November 2023, a Gallup poll found 70% of Americans think marijuana should be legal.

3) Biden’s border policies are regressive

This one may seem controversial but bear with me because this is something all Democrats and Democrat leaners should be able to get behind: President Biden has turned to regressive Trump-era policies at the border. President Biden has filled Immigration Courts with Trump hires, continued building Trump’s border wall, enacted an “Asylum Transit Ban” first used by President Trump, and defended Trump’s family separation policies. All of these Immigration policies were rightfully called out by liberals when they were done by President Trump. Now that these policies are continuing and being defended by President Biden there is no reason we should stop calling these policies out.

4) Biden is too old

This may also seem controversial to some, but President Biden is simply too old to be President of the United States. This isn’t a knock on President Biden, it is this simple reality that someone who is 82 is not going to be as sharp as someone who is 50 or even 70. An NBC News poll from earlier in February found that 76% of voters are concerned about Biden’s age. President Biden should have followed through on his early campaign promises to only serve one term and allowed an open primary this year. Instead, we have a President who is getting older by the minute and will be 86 in 2028. Democrats should not risk the chance that fears over Biden’s age will mean that people will vote for Trump in November.

5) Biden has not done enough to pressure Israel

This is the one that started the uncommitted campaign, President Biden simply has not done enough to force Israel to follow international law in their war against Hamas. Biden has continued to fund Israel’s war against Hamas despite the fact that 30,000 Gazans are now dead as a result of the war. The Biden Administration has also continued to veto United Nations resolutions that call for a ceasefire. A true progressive would be calling for a ceasefire in Gaza right now and refusing to send more military aid until a ceasefire happens, but at the very least President Biden should be supporting measures by Senator Bernie Sanders that only allow Israel to receive military aid if they are following international law.

---

You don’t have to be angry about all of these things to vote uncommitted. But I feel pretty confident that after reading this there are a few things that you wish President Biden had done very differently. It’s time to send a message to President Biden that we want change in 2024. Remember, President Biden does not deserve your vote, especially in a primary, he has to earn it.

You can officially vote uncommitted in Alabama, American Samoa, Minnesota, Tennessee, Democrats Abroad, Michigan, Missouri, Washington, Northern Mariana Islands, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, US Virgin Islands, Kansas, Kentucky, Hawaii, New Jersey, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Connecticut. Alternatively, to send a similar message, in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Montana vote “No Preference”, and in Wisconsin vote “Uninstructed Delegate”. In California, Vermont, Virginia, Ohio, Oregon and Washington D.C., you can vote for a write-in candidate. Alternatively, you could simply leave your presidential primary ballot blank; in Maine, North Dakota, New York, and Puerto Rico blank ballots are calculated as a percentage of the total vote so leaving your primary ballot blank is essentially the same as voting uncommitted.

(Note: This voting information is current as of 2020, which was the most recent I could find information about voting in each state. If you know of updated information, please comment so I can ensure this is up-to-date.)

There are many other reasons to not support President Biden, if you’re interested in more of them here is my full list of disappointments from President Biden.