It's Not Too Late for Kamala Harris to Earn Votes Like Mine

“If Democrats are serious about defeating Trump in 2024,” I wrote in October 2023, ​“they need a new candidate, and fast.”

While I received lots of support for the piece, I was also met with sharp, patronizing criticism that questioned my intentions and political acumen (“You’re going to hand the election to Trump!”). But as the genocide dragged on and weeks of unrelenting terror turned into months, opposition to ​“Genocide Joe” Biden swelled. According to POLITICO, ​“More than 650,000 Democrats voted against Biden” in the primary elections earlier this year ​“by choosing options such as ​‘uncommitted.’”

Democratic Party insiders eventually reached the conclusion that Biden was unelectable, but they drew the wrong conclusion as to why. 

They convinced themselves that things like a poor debate performance were really Biden’s undoing. That debate in Atlanta was bad, to be sure, but Biden’s prospects of reelection had already faded long before he set foot on that stage because of his unwavering support for the genocide in Gaza.

Even though voters clearly signaled they wanted an end to the genocide, Democrats seemed either unwilling or unable to accept that unflinching loyalty to Israel, which had once been baked into the DNA of the Democratic Party, had become a poison pill. Rather than use Biden’s withdrawal from the race as an opportunity to distance herself from an out-of-touch president, Harris doubled down on Biden’s genocide.

Muslims and Arabs in the United States have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats since the start of former President George W. Bush’s War on Terror, but the genocide has poisoned that well. 

Harris could still pick up a large swath of Muslim and Arab votes — including mine — if and only if she promises to stop sending weapons to Israel immediately.

According to a new YouGov/​Underpin poll released Thursday morning, more than 60% of strongly pro-Palestine voters surveyed in seven key swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin — are ​“much more likely” to vote for Vice President Harris if she enacts ​“an arms embargo to Israel to stop U.S. weapons from being used in Israel’s warfare.” 

As the executive director of a national organization focused on racial and economic justice, I spend most of my time around folks who consider themselves progressive. When I tell people that I still can’t vote for a genocide enthusiast, I hear the same refrain I heard last year when I published the opinion piece here at In These Times: such talk is dangerous because it would lead to a Trump win.

In the weeks leading up to the election, I have heard surprisingly few people talking about what they are doing to push Harris and Biden to stop the genocide now.

The president of the United States can unilaterally stop the genocide. If the president stops weapons shipments, the genocide ends. If Harris values our votes, she could call for an arms embargo tomorrow and she would likely, and instantly, pick up tens of thousands of votes in key swing states — not just from Muslims and Arabs but from Black folks, college students, and other voters who support an arms embargo.

A news release surrounding the YouGov/​Underpin poll also notes that nearly 70% of respondents who do not intend to vote for Harris listed Palestine among their top issues.

Calling for an arms embargo may be the single most impactful thing Harris can still do in the last week of the election that can move the needle in a substantial way. But inexplicably, this fact seems to be lost on the people trying to help her win. 

Barack Obama is wagging his finger at Muslim voters and lecturing us about how a Muslim ban is worse than a genocide. Bill Clinton is trying to explain to us why the genocide is justified. When I told a progressive leader that Harris’s best chance of winning is to call for an arms embargo, he responded: ​“Sounds like your crew would welcome Trump just as an FU to Dems?”

RJ Eskow crunched some numbers based on another recent poll by the Arab American Institute and estimated that the genocide in Gaza could cost Harris 155,000 to 180,000 Muslim and Arab votes in swing states, including more than 60,000 in Michigan. This poll was taken before Israel started bombing Lebanon. A little-known fact about Michigan’s Arab population is that the largest group is Lebanese, not Palestinian. In 2016, Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Michigan by fewer than 10,000 votes. If Harris is playing to win, she should be vying for those 60,000 votes.

Two words can put her miles closer to a win in Michigan: ​“Arms embargo.”

An arms embargo is also unlikely to cost Harris a significant number of Jewish voters. A September poll by the Jewish Democratic Council of America’s polling arm found that while most American Jews ​“feel emotionally attached to Israel,” the issue ranked 9 out of 11 on a list of priorities, behind issues like ​“the future of democracy” and abortion. More than 80% believed that ​“someone can be both pro-Israel and critical of how Israel is conducting the war,” and 40% responded by affirming that ​“Biden-Harris policies toward the war make no difference in how they will vote.”

But we know that for so many Muslim and Arab swing state voters, Gaza is the top issue.

Harris and the Democrats keep telling us that democracy is on the ballot in this election, but I wonder if they believe it. If they did, then an arms embargo should be a no-brainer. Sometimes the right policy is also the politically expedient one. This is one of those times. Yet Harris seems dug in.

There is a broad effort to try to bully, gaslight, and threaten Muslims and Arabs into voting for Harris. Warnings that ​“Trump will be worse” or comments about ​“you people” cutting your nose to spite your face are commonplace on social media platforms.

Harris is the one cutting her nose to spite her face by not calling for an arms embargo. Instead of extending an olive branch to voters disgusted by the genocide, she is doing campaign events with former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the top villains in Twenty-First Century U.S. politics and an architect of Bush’s War on Terror, which wreaked havoc across the Muslim and Arab world. Harris is showing us she would rather win by tacking right than tacking left, and she appears to be willing to risk this election on that failed strategy.

If Harris is serious about winning the election next week, she still has time to win many of the voters she has alienated with her support of the genocide in Gaza. But that window is rapidly closing. 

An arms embargo would be a game changer in this election. Everyone who is serious about stopping Trump should do everything they can to get Harris to call for it.

Disclosure: Views expressed are those of the writer. As a 501©3 nonprofit, In These Times does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.