(RepublicanNews.org) – While Wisconsin held its Democratic primary contest and President Joe Biden secured his delegates, voters expressed their discontent with the president’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas militant forces in Gaza by largely voting as “uninstructed.”
“Uninstructed” votes are Wisconsin’s equivalent of “uncommitted.” A protest movement against Biden was hoping to send a message to the president by amassing at least 20,682 primary participants to cast their ballots as such on Tuesday, April 2nd, which is about how many votes Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by in 2020.
The following morning, more than double that amount of “uninstructed” votes were cast, coming in at 47,846 with 99% counted. The final number is now closer to 50,000, a result that poses some concerns for the president’s re-election campaign in the key swing state and more than twice as many as the protest organizers hoped for.
Although Biden won Wisconsin fairly easily with 88.6% of the vote, the “uninstructed” protest vote took about 8.4%. The protest organizers celebrated the victory, encouraging voters to let Biden know “that Wisconsin stands against genocide.”
Three other primaries were held on Tuesday: in Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut. Biden won each of those states, but those voters also sent him a message. Around 11.5% of participants in Connecticut voted “uncommitted” and 14.9% in Rhode Island. Because New York doesn’t have an option to vote “uncommitted,” protest organizers encouraged primary participants to leave their ballots blank, the number of which remains untallied.
Although Trump won all four states for the GOP contest on Tuesday, he also faced some opposition in the polls. Despite claiming 79.2% in Wisconsin, his Republican rival, Nikki Haley, still managed to gain 12.8% even though she has already dropped out of the race. Haley pulled in similar proportions in New York and Connecticut, and a little less in Rhode Island, but still nearly 11%.
How many of those protest votes will form ranks behind the respective candidates of each party in November remains unclear.
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