The Uncommitted National Movement said in a statement provided to multiple news outlets today that it will not give its endorsement to Vice President Kamala Harris.
The announcement comes after Uncommitted set a Sept. 15 deadline for Harris to meet with it over U.S. military and financial support for Israel amid the ever-growing number of Palestinian casualties stemming from its war against Hamas.
During the 2024 Democratic primaries, the campaign urged voters to choose “uncommitted” on their ballots rather than President Joe Biden, who was running for re-election at the time, and amassed more than 500,000 votes.
“Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her” Uncommitted said in a statement.
That said, Uncommitted did encourage its voters to not vote for former President Donald Trump.
HuffPost reported that the campaign said some Uncommitted voters “will be voting for Vice President Harris, even through their pain and grief, in order to block Donald Trump.”
In a fuller statement posted on Instagram, Uncommitted said it didn’t recommend its members vote third-party, “especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency.”
“We must block Donald Trump, which is why we urge Uncommitted voters to vote against him and avoid third-party candidates that could inadvertently boost his chances,” the statement reads.
When Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Uncommitted called on Harris to “take a clear stance against weapons for Israel’s war and occupation against Palestinians,” which the campaign now says she hasn’t done. It also garnered almost 100,000 signatures on a petition asking Harris to enact an arms embargo.
When Uncommitted attended the Democratic National Convention last month with its 29 delegates, it staged a sit-in to protest the Convention’s refusal to include a Palestinian speaker.
The speech that Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, who is Palestinian, planned to give at the Convention on behalf of Uncommitted included an endorsement of Harris.
“Let’s commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur,” Romman planned to say, as reported by Mother Jones. “We can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars.”
In its statement today, though, Uncommitted said its work was “never about endorsing a specific candidate.”
“It has always been about building a movement that saves lives,” the statement said.
This post has been updated.
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