Poll Finds Most College Students Aren’t Focused on Gaza War

By Ed Kilgore, political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015

Photo: Eric Thayer/Getty Images

There is a clear generation gap emerging over the war in Gaza; younger Americans are generally more sympathetic toward Palestinians and concerned about Israel’s military operations than their elders. So there has been considerable fear among Democrats that younger voters, who have leaned strongly in their direction in recent years, will hurt Joe Biden’s reelection prospects, either by defecting to other candidates or staying home. But the evidence has been mixed about the salience of the Gaza War as a voting issue, even for younger Americans. There are signs that other issues, like the economy, may be a bigger factor limiting the president’s support among voters of all ages.

Another possibility is that the college students at the center of a national wave of pro-Palestinian protests in recent weeks aren’t particularly representative of their generational cohort. So a new Generation Lab poll of 1,250 college students from around the country, as reported by Axios, is of considerable interest in determining whether it’s as white-hot an issue on campuses as the news might suggest.

The poll confirms that college students exhibit considerable sympathy toward Palestinians suffering in the Gaza War and toward their fellow students who are protesting the war: “45% said they support [pro-Palestinian encampments] either strongly or a little bit. 30% were neutral, and 24% were strongly or a bit opposed.” But they also seem inclined to frown upon disorderly protests:

A large majority (81%) of students support holding protesters accountable, agreeing with the notion that those who destroyed property or vandalized or illegally occupied buildings should be held responsible by their university, per the survey.

A majority also said they oppose the protest tactics: 67% say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable and 58% say it’s not acceptable to refuse a university’s order to disperse. Another 90% said blocking pro-Israel students from parts of campus is unacceptable.

Interestingly, when asked whom they principally blame for the situation in Gaza, 34 percent name Hamas and 31 percent name the Israelis (19 percent specifically blame Bibi Netanyahu and 12 percent the Israeli people generally). But only 12 percent blame Joe Biden. The label “Genocide Joe” would not appear to have a large number of subscribers on college campuses.

Most importantly, when asked to identify three issues of greatest concern to them out of a list of nine, college students ranked “the conflict in the Middle East” dead last, behind “immigration policies” and “national security/terrorism.” The top five were “healthcare reform,” “educational funding and access,” “economic fairness and opportunity,” “racial justice and civil rights,” and “climate change.” These items represent an issues landscape that should greatly favor Biden — certainly against Donald Trump — if his campaign focuses on them effectively with this audience. At this juncture, it doesn’t appear college students have closed their ears or their hearts to Democrats out of anguish over the fate of Gaza. They probably wouldn’t, moreover, react favorably to the kind of massive repression of campus protests Republicans are demanding.