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election 2024
'Damning' New Poll Shows Price Kamala Harris Paid for Backing Israeli Genocide in Gaza
"Israel is a liability," said one Palestinian-American rights advocate.
Jan 15, 2025
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.
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."
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Progressive Group Launches House Recruitment Drive to Defeat Corporate Dems
"Our mission is clear: We must usher in a new generation in the Democratic Party, led for and by the working class, to take on billionaires and corporate power," said the head of Justice Democrats.
Jan 14, 2025
The progressive political action committee Justice Democrats on Tuesday launched a 50-state recruitment effort "seeking nominations of everyday, working-class people to run for Congress after a cycle of unprecedented spending from the billionaire class and right-wing super PACs in Democratic primaries."
Justice Democrats, which "helped recruit and elect members of the Squad to Congress, will recruit the next generation of primary challengers in Democratic primaries in open seats and blue districts against Democratic incumbents who are out of touch with their constituents," the group said in a statement.
As Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi put it in a
Politico interview published Tuesday, "There is something wrong with this party as a whole right now, and it's time to clean up shop in this Democratic Party."
Democrats are still reeling from their loss of the White House and Senate and failure to reclaim the House of Representatives in November's elections, in which numerous critics attributed Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat by Republican President-elect Donald Trump to a failure to connect with working-class voters.
"To be the party of the working class, we need more working-class leaders in power," Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas asserted Tuesday. "Leaders like the elected Justice Democrats in Congress have shown us another way of doing politics is possible and represent the promise of uniting our fractured nation into a multiracial democracy where everyone thrives and no one is left behind."
The 119th Congress is one of the richest & oldest ever. Today, we officially launch our 2026 candidate recruitment–working class communities deserve working class leaders in Congress. Nominate someone you know to take our power back from billionaires: jdems.us/nominate
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— Justice Democrats (@justicedemocrats.bsky.social) January 14, 2025 at 6:14 AM
"It's time to end the era of career politicians and the corrupt campaign finance laws that keep them in power," Rojas added. "Our mission is clear: We must usher in a new generation in the Democratic Party, led for and by the working class, to take on billionaires and corporate power. The Democratic Party can only win back working-class voters with real, working-class leaders."
Justice Democrats currently serving in the House of Representatives are: Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (Texas) and Reps. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.).
Other groups including Sunrise Movement have also launched efforts to push the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction, including by reviving a ban on corporate lobbyist donations to the Democratic National Committee and banning super PAC spending in Democratic primaries.
This, after special interests led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Wall Street-backed cryptocurrency lobbyists poured $30 million into just two Democratic House primaries to oust working-class incumbents Cori Bush (Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.).
Some congressional Democrats have taken these defeats as a sign that "we might have swung the pendulum too far to the left," as Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) toldNOTUS Tuesday.
However, Justice Democrats is urging Democratic lawmakers and candidates to eschew pressure to move rightward out of fear of further losses and instead pursue policies that will win back working-class voters.
"Until party leadership leads the way to take big money out of politics, ends the billionaire influence over our elections and policies, and puts the needs of working-class people back at the center of its agenda, voters will see its populist platitudes as lip service," said the group, which vowed to "continue to lead the charge to show that with working-class voices in Congress, we can fight for universal healthcare, create millions of union jobs, end taxpayer funding for endless wars and genocide abroad, and lower costs for everyday people nationwide."
As Andrabi and Rojas wrote for Zeteo Tuesday: "A debate is taking place on how the party should move forward: Will we finally begin to be the party of the multiracial working class and embrace a new generation of leaders like the Justice Democrats in Congress? Or will we double down on becoming Republican-lite by cozying up with the wealthy elite and fall into the GOP's divide-and-conquer strategy, targeting our most vulnerable communities?"
"The choice is up to us—the everyday people our politicians are elected to serve," they added. "We can let the billionaire class and Democratic leadership handpick corporate Democrats who will do their bidding or we can recruit and empower the working class instead."
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Trump Fumes as Final Jack Smith Report Details 'Series of Criminal Efforts to Retain Power'
"But for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial," the report states.
Jan 14, 2025
The special counsel who investigated and charged Donald Trump over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election said in a final report released by the U.S. Justice Department early Tuesday that the former president would have been convicted for "a series of criminal efforts to retain power" had he not won another White House term in November.
"But for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial," wrote Jack Smith, who resigned from the Justice Department late last week ahead of Inauguration Day.
Smith pointed to the Justice Department's view that "the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president," a position he said is "categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind."
The report, which Trump's legal team sought to bury, is the first of two volumes that Smith's team produced following the completion of its investigations into the former president's unlawful election interference and hoarding of classified documents. Smith dropped the two cases shortly after Trump's victory in the 2024 election.
According to the Justice Department, Smith has urged that the volume on the classified documents probe not be released to the public while the case against Trump's former co-defendants is still pending.
"Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office."
In the newly released report, Smith detailed how Trump and his allies tried to "induce state officials to ignore true vote counts," manufactured "fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost," directed "an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election," and leveraged "rioters' violence to further delay it."
"In service of these efforts, Mr. Trump worked with other people to achieve a common plan: to overturn the election results and perpetuate himself in office," the report added.
Trump responded furiously to the report's release, ranting on social media that "Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his 'boss,' Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another 'Report' based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were."
In his introduction to the report, Smith rejected as "laughable" Trump's claim that the investigations were politically motivated or influenced in any way by the Biden administration.
"While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters. I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters," Smith wrote. "The facts, as we uncovered them in our investigation and as set forth in my report, matter. Experienced prosecutors know that you cannot control outcomes, you can only do your job the right way for the right reasons. I conclude our work confident that we have done so, and that we have met fully our obligations to the department and to our country."
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