Oklahoma delegates supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago received an email from concerned Tulsan voters earlier this week.
The message mentioned support for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. The email included signatures from more than 75 Democratic and independent voters.
Linda Allegro was one of three, along with Kelsey Royce and Amira Al-Jiboori, who gathered signatures and drafted the email. Allegro wanted to make the message pertinent to Tulsan voters.
“So, we drafted a letter to try to make it as Oklahoma relevant as possible. Oklahoma knows a little bit about genocide,” Allegro said.
The common campaign message from DNC speakers has been joy, but Royce doesn’t like that message because of what’s going on in the Middle East.
“I would say that it’s very important to let our Democratic delegates know that there’s no joy in genocide,” Royce said.
Many of the speakers have mentioned the phrase ceasefire or talked about the Israel-Hamas war, but Al-Jiboori said those words ring hollow.
“I feel like there’s been soundbites of the word ‘ceasefire’ and ‘bring the hostages home,’ but there’s been no talk of actually stopping the funding of the war,” Al-Jiboori said.
Allegro said a lack of commitment to a ceasefire has led to a lack of commitment from voters.
“I know for a fact that there’s quite a few people on that list who became independents. Who, who kind of denounced their Democratic Party affiliation and became independents over Gaza,” Allegro said.
Allegro mentioned that it was easy to get signatures for the email. She said there were some Republican voters who wanted to add their signatures, but she decided against including them because the convention is Democratic.
Oklahoma 1st Congressional District Delegate Bruce Niemi originally received the email. He passed on the message to Oklahoma delegates, because he said it’s important to allow constituents to speak on issues.
“Whether they’re a Democrat or an independent or even a Republican, their views need to be heard, because we’re supposed to be a deliberative body in conducting the business for the national Democratic party.”
2,000 largely peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated Wednesday in Chicago according to the Associated Press. This comes after 56 people were arrested at the Israeli consulate on Tuesday during an unsanctioned protest.
The Democratic National Convention ended last night.
