Rashida Tlaib’s Sister Leading Group to Draw Dem Primary Voters Away from Biden
(Headline USA) The sister of “Squad” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., launched a group that seeks to pull Democratic primary voters away from President Joe Biden over his continued support for Israel.
Layla Elabed, the campaign manager for the new group, Listen to Michigan, has been encouraging Michiganders to vote “uncommitted” in the state’s Democrat primary later this month, according to the New York Times.
The group argued Biden has not earned their support because of his refusal to condemn Israel’s military strikes on Hamas following the terrorist organization’s Oct. 7 attack.
Biden must “shift his policy to support a ceasefire at least,” she said, or put restrictions on aid to Israel.
“If we can demonstrate our political power and discontent through as many uncommitted votes as possible in the Michigan Democratic primaries, then the hope is that Biden would feel more at risk of losing Michigan in the general election,” she told the Times.
The group’s website says the Democratic primary is an opportunity for leftist voters to send Biden a “clear message” that “he can count us out.”
Tlaib has also distanced herself from the president over the past several months, warning his campaign that she has a “number of issues” with him and that she doesn’t know whether she will support his reelection bid.
“The struggle that I have with the president is a number of issues,” she said in December, adding that many of her Arab constituents “feel invisible” to the Biden administration.
“And that’s something I need to have a conversation with [Biden] about,” she said. “In Michigan, [Biden] was already fragile. But after Oct. 7, it seems to have gotten worse.”
Tlaib was censured by her congressional colleagues last year for calling for the “destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about Hamas’s attack on the Jewish state.