Harris may be losing young voters over stance on Israel-Hamas war
By Laina Gustafson
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has angered Democrat voters with her noncommittal stance on the Israel-Hamas war— perhaps none more than young voters on college campuses. In one of the tightest presidential races in history, college students on both sides of the Gaza issue may cast their votes for Green Party candidates or Republican candidate Former President Donald Trump instead.
The Democratic Party has historically relied on strong support from the collegiate demographic. However, rising protests against both the US military’s support for Israel and increasing antisemitism may turn student voters away from the Harris-Walz ticket in unprecedented numbers.
Harris, like President Joe Biden, has retained a moderate stance on the role of the US in Gaza. She has reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, while condemning the loss of innocent Palestinian lives in Gaza and calling for an immediate cease-fire.
Pro-Palestian students criticize Harris’ lack of commitment to cutting off aid to Israel, while many Jewish students have called her out for failing to address rising accounts of antisemitism.
In the months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and subsequent Israeli military campaign in the Gaza strip, college campuses have become the primary sites of protests and encampments.
Thousands of college students in Pro-Palestinian encampments have been arrested by campus police. Boston campuses are no exception, with high-profile police and protester interactions taking place at Havard, Emerson College and UMass Amherst campuses.
Pro-Palestinian student groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, have led the call for stopping US involvement and aid to the Israeli military and an end to the violence in Gaza, which the White House has labelled a “humanitarian crisis.” Since Oct. 7, Al Jazeera estimates over 40,000 Palestinians and 1,700 Israelis have been killed.
In an interview with the Boston Globe, Violet Barron, founder of Jews for Palestine at Harvard, said she would rather vote third party than for Harris or Trump. “The lesser of two evils is still evil,” Barron said.
While students withholding votes for Harris are becoming increasingly vocal through protests and social media, their actions may be more symbolic than having an actual effect on the race. In a recent Havard poll, just 1% of college students reported the Israel-Palestine conflict as the issue they are most concerned about. Furthermore, the students committed to changing their ballot over this issue are largely concentrated in blue states—and therefore unaffected by the loss of young Democratic voters, at least in these small numbers.
The full impact of these students’ decisions remains to be seen, as the first absentee and mail-in ballots start to trickle in before Election Day in November.