The outrage of young Americans over the war between Israel and Hamas has dominated political discussion for weeks. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have made pilgrimages to Columbia University and other campuses to support or denounce demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza, and President Biden addressed the unrest in his remarks on Thursday.
But recent polls suggest these headlines don’t reflect young voters’ biggest concerns this election year. Polls in recent months show that young voters are more likely to sympathize with the Palestinians in the conflict, but few of them list the Israel-Hamas war among their top issues in the 2024 election. Like other voters, economic concerns are top of mind for young people often at the top of the list.
And although young voters are cooler toward Mr. Biden than they were at the same point in 2020, there is little evidence that American support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza is a key factor in their relative discontent.
“When you have two presidents who have the same stance on an issue, the issue automatically moves – I hate to say it – lower on the list because it’s obviously an important issue, but that’s what puts it where I am “I will vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden,” said Devon Schwartz, a student at the University of Texas at Austin.
Schwartz, 19, a student of both Muslim and Jewish descent who is active in a campus group promoting interfaith dialogue, called the protests at his college that led to police action “a historic moment.” And he said he would have liked the opportunity to vote in November for a candidate who was “more progressive on Israel” than Mr. Biden. But he still plans to vote for him.
“I want to see policy changes from Joe Biden,” he said. “I don’t want to vote for Donald Trump and then see the exact same policies.”
American sympathies for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have shifted slightly in favor of the Palestinians over the past decade. According to Gallup, while 51 percent of Americans continue to sympathize with the Israelis, 27 percent now sympathize more with the Palestinian people, up from 12 percent in 2013.
The shift is essentially generational and most likely reflects not only changes in the conflict itself and a rightward turn in Israeli politics, but also a decade in which pro-Palestinian activists have worked to bridge the cause with domestic movements in the United States like Black Connecting “Lives Matter” and campaigns to withdraw from Israel have gained traction on college campuses.
The latest Pew Research Center survey found that 18- to 29-year-olds are three times more likely to sympathize with the Palestinians in the conflict than those over 65, and twice as likely as adults overall.
“Not necessarily everyone is as enthusiastic as we see from the protesters,” said Laura Silver, deputy director of global research at Pew. “But 18- to 29-year-olds are very different from older Americans.”
Recent polls suggest that these sympathies have yet to translate into a prioritization of war as an election issue in 2024.
In the Harvard Institute of Politics youth survey, conducted just before last month’s wave of demonstrations and campus crackdowns, Americans ages 18 to 29 overwhelmingly criticized Mr. Biden’s handling of the conflict in Gaza, with 76 percent rejected this and 18 percent agreed. But just 2 percent of them said that was their biggest concern heading into the election, compared to 27 percent who said economic issues worried them most.
In a recent Economist/YouGov poll in late April, 22 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 named inflation as their top issue. Two percent cited foreign policy as their biggest concern. (The survey did not specifically ask about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.)
“My friends and I, we are all very concerned about the war in the Middle East and we disagree with the Biden administration’s agenda there,” said Coral Lin, 20, a student at Duke University. She said she has a friend who voted “non-committal” in a Democratic primary to protest the issue.
“But I still know a lot of people who hold that view and are still voting for Biden,” she said, noting that her own concerns about the climate and her belief that Mr. Trump is a threat to democracy have prompted people to continue voting Support Mr. Biden.
Clara Getty, 21, a University of Virginia student and Biden supporter, said she sees parallels to Lyndon B. Johnson’s suffering in the 1968 Democratic primary as he faced outrage over the Vietnam War – and a cautionary tale. “He has made so much progress on domestic issues that I think a second term would have been very beneficial,” she said. “And I think a lot of things are similar with Biden.”
But others argued that even if the Gaza conflict did not lead to a mass exodus of young voters to Mr. Trump, it could cause problems for Mr. Biden if young people did not vote.
“You’re hearing about a lot of people who are becoming more and more apathetic about voting for Joe Biden,” said Cameron Driggers, a 19-year-old University of Florida student and member of the state Democratic Party’s youth council.
Mr. Driggers, an Israeli divestment campaign organizer on his campus, noted that Mr. Biden needs not just votes but also youth organizers to win in 2024, including many who have become active in protest politics around Gaza.
“He continues to basically spit in the faces of youth organizers across the country,” he said. “He especially makes those who vote angry.”
In a statement, Mia Ehrenberg, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, noted the campaign’s investments in its own campus organizers and youth groups and its intention to “continue to speak to young voters about the issues they care about.” including climate currency exchange, gun laws and student loans.
The Biden administration recently announced additional changes to student loan repayment, and Mr. Biden directed his administration to consider reclassifying marijuana as a less serious drug. His campaign advertised his stance on X at exactly 4:20 p.m. on April 20th.
Mr. Driggers said he broadly supported Mr. Biden before the Gaza invasion, pointing to his moves to liberalize marijuana policy, support for labor rights and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. But his support was tested in Gaza.
“I realize that Trump will almost certainly be worse than Biden on all of these issues,” he said. “But at some point, you know, there has to be a limit” for Biden. “And I think he’s about to cross that line.”
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2024-05-07 03:03:38
www.nytimes.com