The Israel conflict has divided Democrats. Will it affect North Carolina's 2024 elections?
The conflict in Gaza has aggravated sore spots for North Carolina Republicans and Democrats in different ways. And in a swing state known for tight races, neither side of the aisle can afford to lose many voters or donors.
Posted — UpdatedViolence occurring nearly 10,000 miles away has aggravated a longstanding sore spot for the Democratic Party, up and down government.
Democrats tout their party as a “big tent,” home to supporters of Israel and Palestinians. But as the armed conflict continues and tensions rise, it threatens to distract Democrats from issues they had hoped to campaign around, such as voting laws and reproductive rights. Party leaders’ responses have left some members feeling ignored or alienated. And, in a state known for its tight presidential and gubernatorial races, the party can’t afford to lose many voters.
“I'm sure nobody in the White House or in the Democratic Party is rejoicing in the fact that this has been dominating the news, dominating internal debate and discussion now for a couple of months,” said Asher Hildebrand, a political science expert at Duke University who worked as chief of staff for Democratic former U.S. Rep. David Price.
Even though Trump won North Carolina in 2020 and Democrats failed to win a single statewide race in the midterm elections, Democrats have been optimistic about their chances next year. They see the leading Republican presidential and gubernatorial candidates — Trump and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson — as flawed, vulnerable opponents.
Biden came within 1.4 percentage points of matching Trump in 2020. Since then, Trump has been charged in four criminal cases, including for his role in trying to overturn the last presidential election results.
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Republicans, meanwhile, have reveled in North Carolina Democrats’ squabbling, using it as ammunition to paint the party as soft on terrorism, disloyal to the country’s allies, and even antisemitic.
Staking out a position that satisfies all Democrats seems virtually impossible. Expressions of support for Israel can be interpreted as disregard for Palestinians. Nuanced criticisms of Israel’s defense strategy are often met with accusations of antisemitism. And pressure continues to build, even on lawmakers who have no direct influence on foreign policy decisions. Many Democrats have little to gain — but a lot to lose — by speaking out on the issue.
“Making both sides satisfied with an acknowledgement of what both are dealing with feels like a no-win proposition at this point,” said Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in Salisbury.
Longstanding tensions
But there are some Democrats reconsidering their support for Biden because of his administration’s support for Israel.
Being told to choose between Biden or a Republican candidate feels like “being told to choose between our rights here in the U.S., and the lives of those in Palestine,” she said.
The party’s ties to Israel was a top issue for Allam when she ran for Congress last year. She lost the Democratic primary to U.S. Rep. Valerie Foushee, who received substantial financial support from a pro-Israel lobbying group.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning, the state’s only Jewish member of Congress, has praised the Biden administration’s work to prevent escalation in the region, as well as its concern for civilians in Gaza.
“We have been assured [by Israel] that they are taking all possible steps to go after Hamas and the terrorists [and] to try to avoid, to the greatest extent possible, civilian casualties,” Manning told WRAL in an interview. She added that Hamas fighters often make it hard because they embed themselves amongst civilians.
Manning said she’s disturbed by a rise of antisemitism in the U.S. and she’s concerned that the conflict issue has only increased hatred for Jewish people in the U.S. She cited Jewish students being harassed on college campuses, Jewish businesses being vandalized, and a Jewish man dying after an altercation with protesters in Los Angeles. “This is the kind of thing we saw in Germany in the 1930s and we should all be alarmed about it,” she said.
The governor’s race
LiVecchi didn’t respond to WRAL’s request for comment before this article was published. After the article was published, he told WRAL that his comment was directed at the image of Rihanna, not Allam.
Critics have accused Robinson of trying to distract from his controversial comments, which could affect him in the general election. The leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Attorney General Josh Stein, is Jewish.
A race between Stein and Robinson could resemble Pennsylvania's gubernatorial race last year.
In a statement to WRAL last week Robinson’s campaign spokesman, Michael Lonergan, said: “The Democrats have a brazen antisemitism problem in their party and they are desperate to hide this by trying to distract with some old Facebook posts taken out of context.”
Longergan noted that the only members in the legislature who didn’t vote for the resolution supporting Israel were Democrats and that Robinson’s “first item as acting governor was to support Israel.”
“To call Lt. Gov. Robinson antisemitic is absurd,” he said. “He stands with Israel and the Jewish people, as do the vast majority of North Carolinians.”
Proposed Jewish Caucus
Robinson has accused North Carolina Democrats of being antisemitic because some within the state party organization voted against the recognition of a new Jewish Caucus, saying in a Nov. 14 statement that it’s an example of Democrats’ “refusal to stand with Israel and the Jewish people against terrorism.”
“It is time for top Democrats like Josh Stein and others to call out the radical, repeated antisemitism in their party,” Robinson said.
Anderson Clayton, chair of the state Democratic party, says Robinson and others are misrepresenting the Jewish Caucus situation.
The Jewish Caucus launched its push for recognition before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. On Nov. 12, the party’s executive committee voted 17-16 against recognizing the caucus. Sixteen members abstained. Some members who withheld their support for the Jewish Caucus were concerned that the group had yet to meet all of the party’s requirements, Clayton said. Party leaders “remain committed to helping the Jewish Caucus achieve recognition,” she said.
Personal feuds among members may have also played a role in the vote — perhaps stoked by the heightened conflict in the party, according to people familiar with the caucus and its formalization efforts.
Prior to the vote, Matt Sadinsky, a former leader of the proposed caucus, was accused of making Islamophobic comments about one of the party’s members — drawing a rebuke from the party’s Asian American and Pacific Islanders Caucus. Sadinsky didn’t respond to calls seeking comment.
Stein said he met with Clayton “to express my disappointment with the results of the vote and to find a path forward.”
“We must embrace North Carolina Jewish Democrats who feel isolated during a time of rising antisemitism and come together to focus on our priority — defeating Mark Robinson, who has a well-documented history of antisemitic comments,” he said in a statement.
Clayton told WRAL last month that she was confident that Democrats wouldn’t let internal disagreements affect their ability to rally voters next year.
Effect on 2024
Political experts hesitate to say whether the internal drama will play a significant role in North Carolina’s elections.
Recent polling doesn’t provide enough insight into voters’ minds for political analysts to make confident predictions about what will happen in next year’s elections, said David McLennan, director of the Meredith Poll.
“In polling, we hate uncertainty,” McLennan said. “There is way too much with these issues.”
And something else could happen before the 2024 general elections that has “just as much of an impact” on the election, said Bitzer, the professor at Catawba College.
“When it comes to the general public’s attention, it’s domestic concerns first, second, third, with foreign affairs usually far in the distance of public importance,” Bitzer said.
Hildebrand, the Duke professor and former Democratic aide, said his students have expressed a “very deep sense of frustration” on the issue.
“If we are headed for a Biden-Trump rematch, which will again be decided by a small number of voters in a small number of swing states, any diminishment of support among young voters is going to matter,” Hildebrand said. “That's the part of this that alarms me, politically.”
It’s unlikely that a North Carolina voter will switch their vote from Democrat to Republican over the Israeli-Hamas issue alone, said Chris Cooper, political science and public affairs professor at Western Carolina University. What’s more likely, Cooper said, is voters staying home or withholding their vote for a specific candidate whose stance on the issue offended them.
“The reality is that the same people who are likely to know the details of individual politicians' positions on a single issue are precisely the kind who are least likely to be undecided,” Cooper said.
“Let's say a Democrat is filling out a ballot and they come across one candidate who took a position they didn't agree with on the Israeli-Palestinian issue,” Cooper hypothesized, “I can imagine the voter skipping over that office and completing the rest of the ballot.”
A ‘tricky position’
“A few folks said they would never vote for me again,” Harrison said.
Harrison doesn’t believe the legislature needs to weigh-in on the issue at all, she told WRAL in an interview. She’s been concerned for how Israel treats Palestinians since she visited the area in 1985.
Harrison says she takes time to explain her position to anyone who’s interested. But “it’s a tricky position to take, to be perceived as anti-Israel on any level,” she said.
Still, Harrison said she’s not worried about divisions within the party muting turnout for Democrats in next year’s election, citing election results from Nov. 7. Voters in Ohio enshrined abortion rights into their state constitution, Kentucky reelected its Democratic governor, and Democrats took back control of Virginia’s state legislature — all amid the chaos in Gaza.
Harrison hopes those who are discouraged by the U.S. support of Israel can find some level of comfort in knowing that some in the Democratic Party do publicly advocate for Palestinian lives.
And she hopes they remember that — whether it’s foreign policy or voting rights issues or climate change — the alternative “would be so much worse.”
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