President Joe Biden’s handling of the Gaza war might impact the decisions of at least a quarter of Democratic voters in November.
Thank you for this Prem. We’ve been trying to warn the Biden administration about how the unconditional support they have for Israel is going to hurt Biden in the 2024 election. Things started to look like they were improving with Kamala Harris publicly calling for a ceasefire, Biden announcing the building of a dock in order to bring aid into Gaza for the starving population, and the US abstaining from voting in order to allow the United Nations resolution to pass that required a temporary cease-fire, release of hostages, and more aid getting into the suffering Palestinians.
But all of those tiny baby steps forward took a huge leap back the other day when Biden secretly sent weapons (including those 2,000 pound bombs) to Israel and asked Congress for more money as well.
From The Washington Post:
“The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.”
All that said, it’s no surprise that this is what the Intercept found.
More than 1 in 5 Wisconsin Democrats said that Israel’s war in Gaza is impacting their vote in the state’s primary on Tuesday, while 71 percent said they strongly support an immediate and permanent ceasefire, according to a new poll released on Monday.
Eleven percent of respondents said President Joe Biden’s handling of the war will impact their vote in November if he does not change course and another nearly 14 percent said it could. Nearly 5 percent, meanwhile, said their vote has been impacted regardless of a change in policy.
The poll was commissioned by Listen to Wisconsin, a campaign to mobilize protest votes during the battleground state’s primary in order to push the White House to change course on its support for the war on Gaza. According to the survey, which was conducted by Poll Progressive Strategies, nearly 26 percent of Wisconsin Democrats support that campaign, which would have voters cast a ballot for “Uninstructed delegation” rather than a candidate.
Reema Ahmad, a Palestinian and Muslim American organizer with Listen to Wisconsin, said that the poll results reflect that a significant proportion of Wisconsin Democrats’ primary votes “are determined by deep opposition to the White House policy in Gaza.”
Prem Thakker is a politics reporter for The Intercept. His interests include climate and the environment, corporate and political corruption, civil rights and justice, and labor. Prem previously worked at The New Republic, The American Prospect, and CNN. He grew up in North Dakota and now lives in Washington, D.C.
