Will escalating violence in the Middle East affect the US elections?

Analysts warn that Israel’s expanding military campaigns in the Middle East could hurt Vice President Kamala Harris’ chances as the country’s presidential election approaches.

The US electorate rarely prioritizes foreign policy. But Israel’s yearlong war in Gaza, as well as its intense bombing campaign in Lebanon, have spurred questions about the US’s role in the conflict.

President Joe Biden’s administration has consistently supported Israel, splitting the Democratic base and turning some voters, especially Arab Americans, against the party.

In a contest between Harris and former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, anger toward the Biden administration could mean that Arab voters in important states like Michigan stay home in November.

“This is a constituency that, by the second term of the Obama administration, identified as Democrat by a two-to-one margin”, Jim Zogby, the co-founder of the Arab American Institute, told Al Jazeera. “Party identification is currently essentially tied at 38 percent each,” says one candidate.

Much of that decrease, he said, has to do with the Biden administration’s support for the war in Gaza, which has erased entire neighbourhoods and killed more than 42, 000 people, many of them women and children.

That campaign has been enabled by about $20bn in US weapons assistance.

“It’s less that this group of voters is getting more conservative, and more that they want to punish this administration for what they’ve allowed to happen”, said Zogby.

“There’s a sense that Palestinian and Lebanese lives don’t matter”.

Eroding support

A September poll by the Arab American Institute found that Harris and Trump were virtually tied among Arab voters, receiving 41 percent and 42 percent support, respectively.

That figure significantly improves the Democrats’ standing. After the start of the Gaza war, Biden’s support among Arab voters waned, falling to just 17 percent in October 2023, making him eligible for re-election.

In the presidential election for 2020, Biden previously received 59 percent of the Arab vote.

When Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, following a debate performance that underscored concerns about the 81-year-old’s age, some voters hoped his replacement, Harris, would bring a fresh approach.

However, Harris has so far declined to support a ceasefire between Biden and the United States, even as Israel’s recent escalatory strikes have put the Middle East in the midst of a wider regional conflict.

When asked if she would have strayed from Biden on any issues in a TV interview this week, Harris responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.

During the Democratic National Convention in August, the Harris campaign received criticism for allowing a Palestinian American to speak on stage to express the suffering in Gaza.

“People are looking for the slightest gesture of humanity, and the campaign just won’t give it to them”, said Zogby. “They’re making a mistake that will cost them votes”.

Swing states

More than 80% of Arab Americans believe that Gaza will play a significant role in shaping their vote, despite the fact that the majority of voters don’t prioritize it.

A small number of swing states, which determine the outcome of the country’s presidential elections, are where many of those voters are concentrated.

The Midwestern battleground state of Michigan, for instance, has the second-largest Arab population in the country. It also has the largest percentage of Arab Americans of any state: Nearly 392, 733 people identify as Arab in a state of 10 million.

Harris has a lead there of only about 1.8 percent, which is a reasonable margin of error given polling averages.

And third-party candidates like Jill Stein, who has actively appealed to the Arab and Muslim American vote in the area, could undermine her razor-thin lead in the state.

According to Michael Traugott, a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Center for Political Studies, “the situation in Gaza has complicated Democratic chances in Michigan.”

If a large portion of the state’s Arab population stays home on election day, Harris will suffer because we anticipate things to be close, he said.

However, there are bitter disagreements within the community about how to best use its electoral leverage given that Michigan’s Arab American population is not a monolith.

Some think that a Michigan loss for Harris would warn other candidates that they undervalue the influence of Arab voters.

Trump, a pro-Israel hawk, faces an unacceptable risk in some circles: the Republican has previously said that Israel should “finish the job” in Gaza and has pledged to deport foreigners who engage in pro-Palestine student protests.

The Uncommitted National Movement, an organization created as a protest movement against President Obama, is one of the groups attempting to walk a tightrope between those viewpoints.

During primaries, the movement called on Democrats to vote “uncommitted”, rather than throwing their support behind the Democratic president.

The movement claims it cannot support Harris and opposes a second Trump presidency as the November 5 general election approaches.

“As a Palestinian American, the current administration’s handling of this genocide has been beyond enraging and demoralising”, a spokesperson said in a video released this week.

“But it can actually get worse,” he continued. Nobody wants a Trump presidency more than]Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, because that is his ticket to wiping Palestine off the map”.

Expanding fighting

The Middle East’s looming threat of further escalation has acquainted the final weeks of the presidential race, giving the US election an air of uncertainty.

In response to the assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hassan Nasrallah, among others, Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel in early October.

Israel also launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon on the same day, along with its deadly aerial bombing operation there. Israel is anticipated to also take action against Iran.

Analysts worry that a significant Israeli retaliation could spark a destructive conflict between Israel and Iran, a worry shared by many Americans.

According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in September, 44 percent of Americans are very or very concerned about the Middle East’s Middle East’s fighting spreading. The possibility of US forces becoming more directly involved was shared by 40 percent of respondents.

Respondents who shared the Democratic Party’s views were also more likely to believe that the US should do more to stop the Israeli-led conflict in Gaza.

According to Laura Silver, associate director of global research at Pew, the results reflect divergent political viewpoints between Republicans and Democrats regarding foreign policy.

“Republican-affiliated Americans are much more likely to want the US to provide weapons to Israel, and they’re somewhat less likely to want the US to play a diplomatic role”, Silver said.

She noted that both younger and older people had different perspectives on the Israeli-Palestine conflict in general and the conflict in Gaza in particular.

In contrast to just 16 percent of those between the ages of 50 and 64, who said the Biden administration favored Israel too much in the current war, according to a February poll found that 36 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 said this.

However, Zogby claimed that Democrats have not yet acknowledged the changes being made in important demographics, including young people and communities of color, regarding the Palestine issue.

Source: Aljazeera