Minnesota joins 15 other states holding presidential primaries on Super Tuesday. With President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump the runaway favorites for their party’s nomination, the biggest question on Tuesday probably won’t be, “Who won?”
But here are four other questions we’ll be asking.
How many Minnesota Democrats will vote ‘uncommitted’?
In Michigan last week, anger over the way Biden has handled Israel’s war in Gaza fueled an organized push for Democrats to mark their primary ballots “uncommitted.”
Biden won the primary with more than 600,000 votes but about 100,000 Democrats in Michigan cast “uncommitted” ballots, a warning sign in the state Biden won by about 154,000 votes in 2020.
A campaign called “Vote Uncommitted MN,” patterned on the Michigan effort, is backed by St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali, Minneapolis Council Member Aisha Chughtai and other local leaders.
“We want him to change course in the Middle East; we want him to change course in our foreign policy as it relates to Palestine,” Chughtai told reporters on Monday. “We want our president to listen to the majority of his party and the people in Minnesota and Michigan who were an important part of getting him elected four years ago.”
In 2020, “uncommitted” got only 2,612 votes in Minnesota’s Democratic presidential primary, compared with over 287,000 for Biden and 222,000 for Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The uncommitted votes in Michigan came from cities like Dearborn, with a high proportion of Muslim residents. Ann Arbor and other college towns also put up big “uncommitted” numbers. Will Minnesota voters follow that pattern?