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Primary voters issue Gaza peace message to Biden

There's been unprecedented support for a pro-peace campaign in the Michigan state primary

The long route to the US presidential election in November continues. Michigan is the latest state to hold party primaries to choose the party candidates.

Supporters and members of the Republican and Democratic parties are looking more than likely to choose, respectively, Donald Trump and Joe Biden to compete for the White House if the latest state-wide party primaries is repeated.

But the US state of Michigan has also delivered a big rebuke for President Biden - tens of thousands of Democrats voted against him over his stance on the Gaza war between Hamas and Israel.

The state has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the country, and many were prepared to mark their ballots as 'uncommitted' in protest against his support for Israel despite calls for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Newsday asked Dr Samer Shehata, a Professor in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, just how unprecedented the campaign has been.

"It's very significant and unprecedented. I have never seen... nearly 13 and a half percent of the electorate went out intentionally - they didn't need to - to vote uncommitted against President Biden as part of a campaign, and so I do think it is very significant."

"It's clear that it's not only Arab-Americans that are voting uncommitted. Young people, college students are also upset."

(Pic: Supporters of the campaign to vote "Uncommitted" hold a rally ahead of Michigan's Democratic presidential primary election in the US state of Michigan; Credit: Reuters)

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