Protests at US universities over Israel’s war in Gaza disrupted Biden’s events
Washington:
Several top White House aides say they are confident that protests on US college campuses against Israel’s Gaza offensive will not translate into significantly fewer votes for Joe Biden in the November election, despite polls showing many Democrats are deeply unhappy with the US president’s policy towards war.
The White House’s optimism on the issue, which is shared by many in Biden’s campaign, flies in the face of dire warnings from some Democratic strategists and youth organizers who warn that misjudging the situation could cost Biden dearly in a tight race with his rival. Republican Donald Trump.
Several aides told Reuters they are advising Biden to stay above the fray rather than engage directly with the relatively small groups of protesters on college campuses, arguing that their numbers are too insignificant to harm the president’s re-election campaign.
Faced with a choice between Biden and Trump in November, many officials remain confident that even Democrats who oppose US policy will choose Biden. Reuters interviewed nearly a dozen senior White House officials in recent days, but only two expressed concern about the impact of the protests and Biden’s handling of the issue.
The issue returns to the spotlight on Sunday, when Biden delivers the commencement address at Morehouse College, despite some objections from students and faculty, and a warning from the college president that the ceremony will be disrupted if there are protests.
Most officials Reuters spoke to said they believed housing costs and inflation were the issues top of mind among young voters, not the war in Gaza, pointing to a recent Harvard poll that ranks Israel/Palestine 15th. on a list of issues, after taxes, gun violence and jobs. Several aides refer to the protesters as “activists” rather than students.
Asked about the matter, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said Biden understands this is a painful time for many communities and is listening. He said many civilians had died in the “painful” conflict and that more needed to be done to prevent the loss of innocent lives, Bates added.
Biden and Trump are nearly tied in national polls, and Trump has an advantage in the battleground states that will decide the election, several recent polls show. On economic issues such as inflation, Trump scores higher with voters in general than Biden.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that Democrats are deeply divided over Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza and the US campus protests against it, with 44% of registered Democrats disapproving of Biden’s handling of the crisis, and 51% of their way of dealing with protests. .
Young voters still favor Biden, but support has fallen significantly since 2020, polls show. A March Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that Americans aged 18 to 29 favor Biden over Trump by just 3 percentage points – 29% to 26% – with the remainder favoring another candidate or not knowing whether anyone would get his way. vote.
Two White House officials Reuters spoke to emphasized that Biden’s support among young voters is not where it was in 2020 and said they feared the administration was not taking the drop seriously enough.
With more than 35,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the war began in October, US support for the Israeli government could weigh heavily in November’s presidential elections, they said.
“There’s almost a level of defiance when it comes to some of the president’s closest advisers on this issue,” said a senior White House official with direct knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named. “They think the best approach is to just stay away and let it go.”
BIDEN SPEAKS CAREFULLY
Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza have erupted at more than 60 colleges and universities this year, disrupted Biden events across the country, pressured Democrats in key battleground states to vote “disengaged” and divided the Democratic Party .
Biden, who is known for speaking his mind even when it is not politically beneficial, has been cautious on the issue of the Gaza protests. He spoke in early May about the importance of following the law, while also defending free speech and later addressing the threat of anti-Semitism on college campuses.
Both times, he mostly avoided the issue that sparked the protests — how young Americans feel about their support for Israel. But he also said bluntly that the protests will not change his policy in the Middle East.
The groups organizing the protests say the recent suspension of some weapons supplies to Israel was too late and they are planning new demonstrations, although the summer holidays could calm the action on campuses.
Michele Weindling, political director of the climate-focused youth group Sunrise Movement, said that “young people are incredibly disillusioned, they are angry with the way the president has handled this conflict.”
“A big risk right now is that young voters will be left out of the electoral system completely in November, or will deliberately vote against Biden out of anger,” Weindling said.
That could cost Biden dearly, given that 61% of more than half of Americans ages 18 to 29 who voted in the 2020 general election voted Democratic, a Tufts University research group found. Young people’s participation increased by 11 points compared to 2016.
GAZA IS NOT A MAIN ISSUE
Republicans overwhelmingly disapprove of the protests and Biden’s handling of the war, a Reuters/Ipsos poll published this week shows. Some Republicans have called on him to send National Guard troops to campuses.
But even a day before Biden gave his first speech on the protests on May 2, he remained unsure whether he needed to address the issue, two officials said. Biden asked his team to put together “something rudimentary” so he could edit and change it, which he did that night, one of the staffers said.
He only made the final decision to speak in the morning, after violence erupted on the UCLA campus, the official added.
The Harvard youth survey, which shows Israel/Gaza has few concerns about youth, is being circulated in internal campaign and White House meetings and is in line with private data the White House has had, the first official said .
The president doesn’t talk about every issue in the news on purpose, another White House official said. This “doesn’t always happen, no matter what kind of news it is, whether it’s the news of the day, the week or the month,” he said.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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