(NewsNation) — Pennsylvania voters sent a message to the 2024 front-runners with an effort by some Republicans to cast a ballot for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and a movement from progressive Democrats to vote “uncommitted.”
Though President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have already secured their respective party’s nominations and won their Pennsylvania primaries by decent margins, they are still facing sizable protest votes in the key battleground state.
There are 19 electoral votes up for grabs in Pennsylvania come November. The key state delivered Biden the 2020 win, but his small margin of victory is putting a bright spotlight on the state.
Biden is facing increased pushback for his continued support of Israel in its war against Hamas and the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Unlike in Michigan, the Pennsylvania ballot does not have an “uncommitted” option, so organizers urged voters to write it in. As a result, the total number of write-in ballots could take weeks to tally.
Currently, the state has counted nearly 58,000 Democratic write-in votes for “uncommitted,” three times the number of write-in results from 2020. The biggest portion of “uncommitted” write-in results came out of Philadelphia, an area that was crucial to Biden’s 2020 win.
Meanwhile, Trump is also facing a protest vote as he spends important campaigning time in the courtroom for his New York hush money trial.
Haley, who suspended her presidential campaign in early March, received nearly 157,000 votes Tuesday with over 90% of the vote counted. Though Trump won the state’s primary by a large margin, Biden won the state by just 80,500 votes in 2020.
The Pennsylvania primary came as the election enters a new phase for Trump. He is primarily campaigning from court, where he faces 34 felony counts in a trial anticipated to unfold over the next several weeks.
