Tuesday's Illinois primary showed no enthusiasm for Biden. Or Trump.
They’re still counting the mail-in votes from Tuesday’s Illinois primary.
It does not appear that the final count will change the fundamental fact that the overwhelming majority of Republican and Democratic voters didn’t bother to vote.
The final turn-out number will be around 20%. That breaks an 80 year record for low voting in an Illinois presidential primary.
Considering that both Biden and Trump are the presumptive nominees of their parties, the fact that the few Democrats who took the time to vote but left the president line blank or voted for somebody who isn’t even running anymore, has to be bad news for Biden.
Illinois is a solidly blue state and will go in the Biden electoral vote column. But the broad lack on enthusiasm for Biden will hurt him in swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Since Illinois doesn’t count or report out write-ins and has no uncommitted option, I can’t report how many voters there were like me who voted and wrote in ceasefire. Or how many left the line blank in protest of U.S. support for Israeli genocide.
Rick Pearson, writing in today’s Chicago Tribune wonders whether or not the Tuesday vote means Chicago will demonstrate much warmth to the Democratic national Convention taking place here this summer.
With mail-in ballots still being counted, results from the Chicago Board of Elections show that of the more than 300,000 Democratic ballots cast in the city, nearly 1 in 4 party voters — more than 73,000 — opted not to vote for president or cast a ballot for one of Biden’s three nominal challengers.
At the same time, the Republican primary election indicated a softness in support for former President Donald Trump in the suburbs, a key swing area that has gradually turned more Democratic.
Reflective of a low-enthusiasm election, nearly 15% of Democratic voters in Chicago chose to not cast a vote for president, according to unofficial results from Chicago election officials. In addition, more than 10% of city Democratic voters who filled out a ballot for president opted for someone other than Biden, the results showed. Combined, that meant more than 24% of Chicago Democrats either didn’t vote for president or didn’t vote for the current president.
What we saw instead was further evidence of the low levels of enthusiasm for both of the candidates from both parties.
While Michigan and Minnesota primaries provided an official uncommitted option, the large number of Illinois voters who chose not to vote for Biden or Trump was organic, spontaneous and individual.
The April 2 primary election in New York has some agitating for a collective protest of Biden’s support for Israel by leaving the presidential line blank.
New York also has early voting.
Also in New York progressive congresswoman and member of The Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke yesterday condemning Israeli genocide in Gaza. It was the first time AOC called it genocide.
“As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine’s door,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech on the House floor on Friday.
Citing 30,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and noting 70% were women and children, she continued: “A famine … is being intentionally precipitated through the blocking of food and global humanitarian assistance by leaders in the Israeli government. This is a mass starvation of people, engineered and orchestrated.
“This was all accomplished – much of this was accomplished – with US resources and weapons. If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments marked the first time the congresswoman, one of the most prominent members of the US’s political progressive left, referred to Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide. Israel mounted the campaign there in response to the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,100 and took hostages.
While other American progressives – including congresswomen Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib, who is Palestinian – have used the term “genocide”, Ocasio-Cortez had refrained from doing so until her remarks on Friday.