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A handful of delegates is threatening to pierce the Democratic Party’s kumbaya for Kamala as its national convention kicks off in Chicago today.
These potential spoilers are known as the Uncommitted Movement, representing voters who deliberately declined to back Joe Biden when he was seeking a second term in the primaries. The movement has drawn delegates from three states—Michigan, Minnesota, and Hawaii—where they voted “uncommitted” in their state primaries this spring. The Uncommitteds argued that voters should use their leverage to change Biden’s policy of supporting Israel’s war in Gaza, and at the DNC this week, they say they are planning to agitate for a “ceasefire, anti-war, pro-peace narrative.”
Kamala Harris secured her place atop the Democratic ticket on August 6, when she was certified by 4,567 delegates out of 4,695 over Zoom. The Uncommitteds comprise just 30 of those remaining 98 delegates. So while they pose no threat to Harris’s nomination, they are a noisy minority who can help galvanize the anti-Israel protesters set to disrupt the DNC this week and force Harris to face a problem she has not yet experienced since Biden dropped out of the race: a bad news cycle.
The Uncommitteds on the inside of the convention are distinct from the radicals who intend to crash it. Some of the groups planning street theater and protests have pledged to make the convention “great like ’68,” a reference to the historical DNC that led to televised riots and clashes between police and demonstrators in Chicago that year. By contrast, the Uncommitteds have sought policy concessions from the Democrats, such as prime time speaking slots and anti-Israel language in the party’s platform. That said, both the outsiders and insiders are pressing for the same goal: ending American support for the world’s only Jewish state.
The Uncommitted Movement was first founded in February as “Listen to Michigan”—named after the state with the largest Arab American population in the country. Layla Elabed, the sister of Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, is campaign manager for the national movement.
Though Biden won more than 618,000 votes in the Michigan primary on February 27 and earned 115 pledged delegates, just over 100,000 people voted “uncommitted”—enough to deny him two delegates at the DNC.
That got the attention of the White House.
In the run-up to the Michigan primary, Biden sent a delegation of senior officials to Dearborn to listen to complaints from local leaders over his policy on the Gaza war. Soon after, Biden’s rhetorical tone on the conflict shifted. He began to criticize Israeli air strikes as “over the top,” and announced sanctions against a handful of Israeli settlers on the West Bank.
Elabed (Tlaib’s sister) took notice of that move. “Despite the naysayers in the establishment,” she said on March 3, “the Biden administration is moving because of the pressure from uncommitted Democrats.”
After the Michigan primaries, Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, a former chief of staff for Democratic Rep. Cori Bush, created a super PAC called Listen to Us (now called the Uncommitted Movement) to challenge Biden in other states. According to OpenSecrets, the organization spent $375,925 against Biden this year during the primaries. The campaign failed to make a dent in Biden’s primary campaign.
But now that Harris is running for the presidency, the movement is pushing her to pledge fealty to their cause. Earlier this month, before a rally in Detroit, she and her running mate, Tim Walz, had met with leaders of the Uncommitted Movement. At that meeting, they discussed a possible arms embargo on Israel, and the vice president’s national security adviser, Philip Gordon, posted on X that she opposes it. But Harris herself made no commitments. And that’s the point.
Eli Lake is a Free Press columnist. Follow him on X @EliLake, and read his piece “The Difference Between the Clinton and Trump Hacks.”
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