Monday,  February 10 , 2025

Linkedin Pinterest
News / Politics / Election

Why did Harris lose some Biden 2020 voters? Poll finds Gaza war was the top issue

By Brendan Rascius, The News Tribune
Published: January 16, 2025, 7:37am

Vice President Kamala Harris won about 75 million votes in the 2024 U.S. presidential election — well below the roughly 81 million that President Joe Biden won in 2020.

What accounts for this sizable disparity? In large part, the war in Gaza, according to new polling.

Among Biden 2020 voters who did not cast their ballots for Harris, 29% said “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the main factor affecting their vote — making it the most cited issue among several options, according to a poll by YouGov and the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project released Jan. 15.

An additional 24% of respondents cited the economy, while 12% cited Medicare and Social Security and 11% named immigration and border security. Meanwhile, the least cited issues were healthcare (10%) and abortion policy (9%).

The results confirm that the Biden administration’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war posed a major weakness to Harris’s campaign, a fact which “few in the Democratic Party have been willing to admit,” IMEU, a non-profit that describes itself as dedicated to providing information about Palestinians, said.

The poll, conducted by YouGov between Dec. 20 and Jan. 7, sampled 604 voters and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

A separate YouGov/IMEU poll found that the issue of Gaza also played an important role in swing states.

Among voters who flipped from Biden to Trump in six battleground states, 20% said “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the main deciding factor in their vote choice. It was the second-most cited issue after the economy (33%).

And in four swing states — Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — Gaza was the top factor among Biden voters who didn’t cast their ballots for Harris.

This second poll, also conducted between Dec. 20 and Jan. 7, sampled 474 voters and has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.

The polls were released on the same day that a ceasefire and hostage agreement was announced between Israel and Hamas. Both Biden and President-elect Donald Trump claimed credit for the deal, according to the Associated Press.

Loading...