More than 60,000 Democratic Pennsylvania voters didn’t vote for Joe Biden in the battleground state’s presidential primary this week, opting to return ballots with a write-in candidate.
The wave of write-ins amounted to 5.6% of the vote in the Keystone State primary, or 60,271 votes, according to the Associated Press, which does not normally track write-ins.
Uncommitted PA, a coalition of individuals and organizations in the state opposed to Biden’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas, urged Democratic voters prior to Tuesday’s election to write in “uncommitted” to voice their displeasure with the incumbent.
The group celebrated the results of the primary as a “massive write-in victory.”
“Uncommitted PA believes that the outcome of the primary election serves as a strong indicator of voter sentiment in the November election,” the group said in a statement. “Voters in Pennsylvania feel conflicted about voting for Biden, as demonstrated by the write-in and undervote.”
Write-ins and votes for Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) – who suspended his insurgent campaign for the White House earlier this year – totaled nearly 130,000 statewide.
“Biden only won the Commonwealth by 80,000 votes in 2020,” Uncommitted PA noted. “Trump won by just 44,000 in 2016. Both margins of victory are eclipsed by total non-Biden votes in yesterday’s Democratic primary.”
“We have sent a clear message in the key swing state of Pennsylvania: to secure victory in our state in November, Biden must drastically change course in Gaza.”
It’s unclear how many of the write-in votes were for “uncommitted.”
Unlike other states, Pennsylvania doesn’t offer voters an “uncommitted” option on the ballot.
The responses on the write-in ballots could take weeks for counties to report, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer
Under Pennsylvania election code, some counties could even opt not to report write-in votes that weren’t cast for a “person,” the outlet notes.
“If write-in votes are cast for something other than a person, the counties have the option to report those write-in votes in a category labeled ‘scattered,’” a Pennsylvania Department of State spokesperson said. “Therefore, it is most likely that we will not know what the specific write-ins said if they were not cast for a ‘person.’”
Biden has faced similar protest votes in a number of states this primary cycle.
In the battleground state of Michigan, 100,000 uncommitted ballots were cast in the state’s Democratic primary in March in protest of the president’s refusal to call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
The total amounted to 13% of the vote, and the Michigan uncommitted campaign received two delegates toward the Democratic National Convention in August.
In Minnesota, nearly 19% of Democratic primary voters casted uncommitted ballots in last month’s contest, for a total of more than 45,900. That campaign nabbed 11 delegates from Biden.
More than 48,000 “uninstructed” ballots were cast in the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary earlier this month, also in protest of Biden’s response to the Middle Eastern conflict, good for 8.3% of the vote.
Pennsylvania’s uncommitted effort comes as Biden and former President Donald Trump are locked in a tight race in the state, where 19 electoral votes will be up for grabs in November.
Both candidates are tied with 48% support each in a head-to-head match, according to a Fox News poll released last week.
With third-party candidates in play, Trump comes out on top of Biden, 44% to 42%.
