The “uncommitted” movement isn’t yet sharing in the widespread excitement for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid. But they’re giving Harris an opening as long as she stakes out a clear position against the war in Gaza.
That Harris even has a chance to win over the leaders of a movement that actively campaigned against voting for Joe Biden in the primaries is a shift in the group’s posture.
Movement leaders say they are paying close attention to Harris as she lays out her agenda. An early test will be how the vice president navigates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S. Harris declined to preside over Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday, but she is scheduled to meet with him privately later this week.
“We’ll learn a lot this week from the Netanyahu meeting, and my feeling is that she will be better. How much better remains to be seen,” James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, told NOTUS. “We have a more open opportunity here than we did with the president whose views on this were so decidedly locked in, and not just locked in, but frozen in a time frame that was really just out of touch with current realities in Israel and here in the United States.”
Trending
Meanwhile, a group of leaders in the Arab American community is hosting a town hall meeting on Sunday to discuss how to respond to Harris’ leading candidacy and chart a path toward negotiating with her campaign.
Leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement have been circulating an online petition — “Not Another Bomb!” — in which they call on Harris to “defeat Trump and MAGA extremism” by distancing herself from Biden’s policy on the war and pledging to enact an “immediate arms embargo on Israel’s assault and occupation against Palestinians as a material step towards a permanent ceasefire.”
“It is difficult for the Democratic candidate to champion democracy while arming Netanyahu’s authoritarian regime,” the petition reads.
Going into the Democratic National Convention, roughly 36 of the 4,000 delegates represent the “uncommitted” movement. Those delegates have not definitively said how they would vote.
In an interview with NPR, one such “uncommitted” delegate and movement organizer from Minnesota said they would like to see an open convention where those in support of a cease-fire in Gaza can come forward.
“I think right now, what we’re asking for is an open convention so that people can, you know, share their ideas for what’s happening in Gaza specifically so that people like me, delegates like me, and the thousands of cease-fire delegates — even Biden delegates who are cease-fire delegates — can come forward and say that they want to support a cease-fire,” Asma Mohammed told the outlet.
Nevertheless, a good-faith effort appears underway to back Harris’ candidacy. Zogby said he is cautiously betting on Harris. Harris made a lasting impression on him when she “was very receptive and displayed a degree of empathy” he “hadn’t seen from the White House” during an October 2023 meeting held in the aftermath of Israel’s counteroffensive.
She also empathized with the campus protesters demonstrating against the war in Gaza, which Zogby believes could help her build significant inroads within the Arab American community.
Abed Hammoud, a longtime Democrat in Dearborn, Michigan, who advises Arab American organizing efforts, told NOTUS he’s long been a Harris supporter and voted for her in the 2020 primaries. He doesn’t fault her for sticking by Biden because he believes it’s intrinsic to her role as vice president.
Her choice in a running mate will be the true indicator of where she stands on the war, Hammoud said. He’s already uneasy about the possibility of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro being her vice presidential pick because he called on the University of Pennsylvania to shut down campus protests.
“Shapiro from Pennsylvania is not good on campus protests and Palestinian causes and stuff like that,” said Hammoud. “So I’m waiting to see.”
More than half a million Americans cast “uncommitted” protest votes in Democratic primaries, Arab American leaders condemned Biden in private meetings with State Department officials and some in the movement warned that voters were going to stay home or were flirting with the idea of voting for Donald Trump.
Harris faces an uphill battle to win those voters back.
“She owns the policies of the administration,” Amer Zahr, president of New Generation for Palestine, told NOTUS. “It doesn’t change anything for me unless she is clear that she supports an unconditional cease-fire and ending arms transfers.”
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, said Harris needs to “reset the table” regarding the Middle East, which will be difficult.
“We potentially create a little bit of space between her and the president,” he said. “I would argue she’s not President Biden, and it gives her an opportunity to distance herself from the ‘uncommitted’ movement which is specifically targeted on Joe Biden.”
—
Tinashe Chingarande is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Author
