Kamala Harris Fails to Win Key Endorsement
The Uncommitted National Movement, an organization of Democrats who seek a cease-fire in Israel’s war in Gaza as well as an arms embargo against the country, announced Thursday that they will not be endorsing Kamala Harris.
In a statement, the organization said that “Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her.”
But the organization added that they oppose “a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” and that they wouldn’t recommend “a third-party vote in the presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.”
At the conclusion of our historic sit-in at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Uncommitted National Movement leaders asked Vice President Harris to respond by September 15 to requests to meet with Palestinian American families in Michigan who lost loved ones to… pic.twitter.com/c9QE03gTpL
— Uncommitted National Movement ???? (@uncommittedmvmt) September 19, 2024
The nonendorsement comes after Harris gave a boilerplate answer to a panel from the National Association of Black Journalists when asked about Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, which has killed over 41,000 Palestinians. The Democratic presidential nominee stuck to the talking points on her campaign website and didn’t offer any specific solutions or changes to existing U.S. policy.
At the Democratic National Convention last month, the Uncommitted movement, which had 30 delegates at the convention, pushed unsuccessfully for an acknowledgment of the suffering and genocide taking place in Gaza on the main stage and asked the party to allow George state Representative Ruwa Romman to deliver a short speech. In the end, all they received was a panel on Palestinian human rights on the convention’s first day.
Still, at that point, the organization held out hope that Harris would reach out, giving her until September 15 to meet with Palestinian American families in Michigan who lost family members to “U.S.-supplied bombs in Gaza and to discuss their demands for halting arms to Israel and securing a permanent ceasefire.”
That deadline came and went, prompting Thursday’s statement from the organization. Meanwhile, the Council on American Relations, in polling of Muslim American voters in the battleground states, has Green Party candidate Jill Stein leading Harris in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. While the Uncommitted movement didn’t endorse Stein, many of its supporters plan to vote for her, which could be a problem for Harris and the Democrats come November.