Vice President Kamala Harris just received some bad news concerning her chances of winning a critical battleground state in the 2024 presidential election. A new report from Chris Powell over at Trending Politics News has revealed that Harris lost the support of the Uncommitted National Movement. You might not have heard of this organization before, so here’s why this is a huge development. The UNM is a highly-prominent anti-war group that is rooted within the Palestinian-American community located in the state of Michigan.
The organization was pushing for Harris to set up a meeting with the families who are being negatively impacted by U.S. supported bombings in Gaza and to try and help bring the situation to a peaceful end by making changes to the U.S. stance on giving aid to Israel. The UNM has announced that it will not give her its endorsement, a decision they came to based on Harris’ unwillingness to reconsider some of her positions on foreign policy issues.
The Uncommitted National Movement, born out of the anti-war efforts against U.S. involvement in Gaza, has grown into a powerful grassroots organization, especially among Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan. The group organized a historic sit-in at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago earlier this year, demanding a meeting with Harris by September 15. Their request centered on halting U.S. arms sales to Israel and securing a ceasefire in Gaza. However, the campaign’s failure to engage with these demands has led the movement to publicly distance itself from Harris. In a statement released following the deadline, the group said, “Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her.” They added that while they oppose a Trump presidency, their disappointment in the Democratic leadership’s handling of the Israel-Palestine issue has made it difficult for them to support Harris in the upcoming election.
At the conclusion of our historic sit-in at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Uncommitted National Movement leaders asked Vice President Harris to respond by September 15 to requests to meet with Palestinian American families in Michigan who lost loved ones to… pic.twitter.com/c9QE03gTpL
— Uncommitted National Movement 🌺 (@uncommittedmvmt) September 19, 2024
“This snub is particularly significant because Michigan is a battleground state, and Muslim voters there played a key role in Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. The Arab American community, which includes a sizable Palestinian population, has been increasingly vocal about its opposition to U.S. support for Israel. Many within the community are still upset by the Biden administration’s handling of the 2021 Gaza conflict and see Harris’s silence on the issue as further alienation,” Powell wrote for TPN.
So just how influential is the UNM in Michigan? Just because you might not have heard of the group before doesn’t mean it can’t sway massive numbers of voters away from Harris. Back during the Democratic Party primaries, the organization helped get 100,000 anti-war voters pumped up to head to the polls in the state and ended up getting 0 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. And the reach they possess is starting to spread out from Michigan as their “Not Another Bomb” campaign has now gone all over the country, getting over 100,000 people mobilized in over 35 states.
In other words, losing this group’s endorsement is a big loss for Harris. YUGE even.
Michigan is one of the battleground states that is now playing a huge role in shaping the political future of our country. Trump won the state in 2016, by less than 1 percent, but thanks to that state flipping red, Trump was able to cinch the victory.
“The upset helped propel Trump to the presidency, as Michigan, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all flipped Republican for the first time in decades. However, in 2020, Joe Biden managed to reclaim Michigan for the Democrats, winning by over 154,000 votes. Michigan’s importance, with its 16 electoral votes, makes it a crucial state for both parties in upcoming elections,” Powell said.
“As the Harris campaign attempts to solidify its base and rally voters ahead of the general election, this loss of support from a key constituency could spell trouble in swing states. The group’s statement points out that 56 percent of Democrats oppose military aid to Israel, and Harris’s inability to address this issue may leave her vulnerable among progressive and anti-war voters. For many Palestinian Americans and anti-war activists, the latest shows a growing frustration with the Democratic Party’s stance on foreign policy, particularly regarding Israel and Palestine,” the journalist concluded.
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