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“Israel is a liability,” said one Palestinian-American rights advocate.

By Julia Conley, Common Dreams

As a cease-fire and hostage release deal was reportedly reached between Hamas and Israel on Wednesday, new polling made it clearer than ever that Vice President Kamala Harris‘ refusal to break with the Biden administration’s position on Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza had an impact on her support from voters, and contributed to millions of potential Democratic voters deciding to stay home on Election Day.

A YouGov poll backed by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project and released on Wednesday showed that among the 19 million people who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 but did not vote in 2024, nearly a third named Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza as a top reason for staying home.

“The top reason those non-voters cited, above the economy at 24% and immigration at 11%, was Gaza: a full 29% cited the ongoing onslaught as the top reason they didn’t cast a vote in 2024,” wrote Ryan Grim at Drop Site News, the first outlet to report the news.

Vice President Harris is pictured during an interview with CNN's Dana Bash in Savannah, Ga., on Thursday — her first in-depth, on-the-record conversation with a journalist since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee. Will Lanzoni/CNN

In states that swung from Biden in 2020 to President-elect Donald Trump in 2024, 20% of non-voters said Gaza was the reason they didn’t cast a ballot in November.

After replacing Biden as the nominee in July, Harris faced pressure—as the president had—to take decisive action to end U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has now killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been civilian men, women, and children.

Advocates called on Harris to support an arms embargo on Israel—one that would have placed the U.S. in compliance with its own laws, such as Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which bar the government from providing military aid to any country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.

The U.S. has made more than 100 military transfers to Israel since it began bombarding Gaza in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid has left parts of the enclave facing famine, according to the World Food Program and international experts.

“We want to support you, Vice President Harris, and our voters need to see you turn a new page on Gaza policy that includes embracing an arms embargo to save lives,” one leader of the Uncommitted National Movement told Harris at an event in August. At the same event, the vice president accused protesters who chanted, “We won’t vote for genocide!” of wanting “Donald Trump to win.”

At Drop Site News, Grim wrote that Harris later emphasized, “I am not Joe Biden” and insisted that her presidency “not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency” because of her “life experiences, [her] professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas”—but she continued to back the White House’s position on the bombardment of Gaza.

“Of course, diverging from Biden on Gaza risked losing voters who supported his policy,” wrote Grim. “But a close look at the survey suggests that risk was low compared to the potential reward.”

YouGov asked voters who turned out for Harris and had also backed Biden in 2020 whether a shift away from the White House policy on Israel and Gaza would have made them more or less likely to vote for Harris.

“By a 35 to 5 margin, they said doing so would have made them more enthusiastic to vote for her, with the remainder saying it would have made no difference,” reported Grim.

Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American who co-founded the International Solidarity Movement, said the “damning new poll” shows that “Israel is a liability.”

Grim noted some caveats, pointing out that “even if October 7 and the resulting genocide had never happened, it’s fair to assume some number of those non-voters still would not have voted, and would have cited a different top reason for not voting.”

“Still, even the most biased poll can only manufacture so much of a response,” wrote Grim. “Even if the true numbers aren’t as stark as this survey found, it points in a clear direction: Biden’s ruthless support for Israel’s genocide, and the refusal of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to break with him, hurt her among voters who stayed home.”

The IMEU Policy Project called on the Democratic Party to “come to terms with the real reasons it lost the presidency in November, including because after over a year of unprecedented protests and calls for Biden to stop sending weapons to Israel, party leadership failed to listen to its own voters.”

“As the Democratic Party looks for its future leaders in 2028 and beyond,” said the organization, “they need to understand that voters they lost in 2024 overwhelmingly say they would prefer to support officials who have opposed sending more weapons to Israel.”

Democratic Party Militarism and Foreign Policy