Democratic presidential nominee US Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns in Atlanta, Georgia, October 19, 2024
Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party lost a significant amount of votes in the 2024 US presidential election due to the party’s policy on Israel’s war in Gaza, Axios reported on Sunday, citing internal research carried out by top Democratic officials.
In December, Democratic National Convention (DNC) chairman Ken Martin said he would not publish the report he had ordered months before into the election defeat. In a statement at the time, Martin said the DNC had “completed a comprehensive review of what happened in 2024” and was “putting its learnings into motion.
“Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission,” Martin argued at the time.
According to US media, Democratic party officials conducted over 300 interviews with Democrats across all 50 states as part of the party’s effort to uncover what led to US President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.
Support for Israel ‘drained support’ from young people, progressives
According to Axios, DNC officials also met with activists from the IMEU Policy Project, who told the Democrats that former US president Joe Biden’s administration’s support for Israel “drained support from some young people and progressives.
“The DNC shared with us that their own data also found that policy was, in their words, a ‘net-negative’ in the 2024 election,” Axios cited spokesperson Hamid Bendaas as saying.
Furthermore, IMEU reportedly accused the DNC of withholding its report due to its findings on Israel, a claim denied by spokesperson Kendall Witmer.
Despite the internal investigation’s finding, the former vice president drew a harder line on Gaza than Biden in the months leading up to the 2024 election. Harris held back from labeling Israeli actions in Gaza a “genocide,” but did call it “real” during a campaign stop in Milwaukee in October 2024.
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