The State of the Uncommitted Vote

The results from last week and the most important targets going forward.

When it comes to counting votes (among many other things), the rest of the country could do well to learn from the Midwest.

Think about how things went during the Michigan primary just two weeks ago. The election was held on the 27th, the polls closed at 8pm, the results came in that night and were almost fully complete by the morning. After that, I was able to write an analysis of it on the same day. It was simple—the exact way things are supposed to work.

We were not nearly this fortunate on Super Tuesday last week. While some states, mostly on the East Coast and center of the country, were able to get their results quickly, quite a few were extremely slow—so slow, in fact, that we still do not have their full results after a week. This led me to hold off from writing something about the results in the immediate aftermath—the picture just wasn’t clear—but now that we’re only a day away from a new set of primaries, I’ve decided to stop waiting on them. Sorry, California.

I’ll start off with an updated version of the voting map I made for my Uncommitted Voter’s Guide article, courtesy of In These Times. This map was based off the one I made for that piece, only improved to look a little better, communicate things a bit more clearly in the legend, and account for the current state of voting after Super Tuesday (minus Hawaii). The only thing I’d add to it is the section I had in my last map for states that count blank ballots, like New York and my own state of Georgia, where organizers are currently pushing for voters to leave a blank vote for president. Hopefully this helps further establish what your options are if your primary is still coming up.

Looking forward, we have a wide variety of states with uncommitted options. Some present plenty of opportunities. Some present almost none. A select few have the potential to rock the political world. To understand which are which, you need to look at the results that have already come in so far. So, for this article, I will provide an in-depth look at how the anti-Biden vote did in each of the states that voted last week. Was the president locked in in your state? Was he tweaking? What comes next? Read below to find out.

The North

Maine: 93%* for Biden, 7%* for Dean Phillips (Incomplete results)

Starting off, we have the Pine Tree State, one of many states and territories to convert from a caucus to a primary after the 2016 election. Because of this, we don’t have an exceedingly long history of the tendencies of the state’s Democratic voters, which gives us little but vibes to judge the results. Since Maine is in New England, we can expect the voters to be weird and unpredictable, as they often are. It was also a relatively left-leaning state in the 2020 primary. While Biden won the contest in an upset, it was by a small margin, and the combined votes between him and Bloomberg were less than those won by Warren and Sanders. These factors, along with the state’s relatively high level of education and near-total lack of minority voters, all seemed to strongly favor an anti-Biden vote, even if it lacked a direct uncommitted option. If it ended up being one of the president’s worst states, I would have been far from surprised.

Check the results pages in the media, though, and you’ll find that the state was seemingly far from this. Not only was it not one of Biden’s worst states, but it actually ended up being one of his best in the entire country. In fact, if you go by raw percentage of the vote, it was actually the best state for him of the night. What gives? Did Biden suddenly establish some major rapport with famously flinty New Englanders? Does the state’s population of lighthouse keepers and art students just love Benjamin Netanyahu? Did they see the growing momentum against Biden and decide to be contrarian by backing him to the hilt?

The answer is no. As it turns out, we actually still don’t know how Biden did in Maine. The results aren't complete. While election websites will tell you that the state is fully reported, they’re missing something crucial: blank ballots. This was the main method of truly protesting against the administration in the state, and we won’t know how many did it until the state government there publishes its official count. The fact that they haven’t yet is why Biden’s vote share is so abnormally high compared to similar states.

While it’s impossible to predict the exact amount of blank votes there will be, the unofficial results from the cities of Portland, South Portland, and Bangor show blank ballots solidly outrunning the totals received by Dean Phillips. If that happens consistently across the state, the blank vote will easily hit double-digits, knocking Biden into the low 80s or lower. In the end, Maine could very well end up being one of Biden’s weakest performances in the country, especially considering that voters there had no direct protest option. We’ll just need a little more time before we know for sure.

Verdict: Not clear, but likely a poor performance for Biden given the lack of an uncommitted option.

Minnesota: 71% Biden, 19% Uncommitted, 8% Phillips, 2% Other.

Oh, lord.