Political analyst weighs in on how country-wide college protests of Israel-Hamas war impacts upcoming elections

WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — The encampments and protests on college campuses across the country regarding the Israel-Hamas war are happening as several states are gearing up for their primaries.

As the general election nears, associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, Alex Keena, said the protests are a major conflict that President Joe Biden must deal with.

“You can’t discount the fact that this is an election year and Biden won in 2020, thanks in part to a lopsided margin of victory with young people,” Keena said. “In political science, there’s often been this rule that young people don’t vote as much. But this generation of young people actually seems to defy that rule. So, their votes are more important than ever to a candidate like Joe Biden.”

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He said young people making their voices heard are very passionate about the crisis in Gaza.

“I think in some ways he [President Biden] has a huge conflict that he must deal with because Jewish voters have in recent years at least, they’ve trended towards the Democratic Party,” Keena said.

He said its not an easy position for Biden to be in.

“Young people are very much motivated and impassioned in the humanitarian cause of the civilians in Gaza, and they see this war as a lopsided use of force against the civilian population,” Keena said. “Biden is in a bind because on the one hand, he wants to show support for Israel as a country, but he also wants to at least recognize that this humanitarian crisis in Gaza is something that needs to take priority.”

Keena said protests won’t have a huge impact on the primaries, but it is an opportunity for young people to show their stance on Biden’s position.

“Both Biden and Trump have pretty much locked up the primary races for their respective parties. But it is an opportunity to show support or to put it the other way to show dissatisfaction with Biden’s positions,” he continued.

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DC News Now asked Keena if former President Donald Trump should or will be impacted by the protests.

“A lot of Democrats who would argue that, ‘hey, it doesn’t make sense to protest Biden, because if you withhold your vote for Biden, then you essentially help elect Trump, who very clearly is pro-Israel and doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians,’” Keena said. “He’s sort of off the hook because it’s not really an issue in the Republican primary, there really wasn’t much of a Republican primary and most Republican voters approve of Trump’s posturing in Israel. But once we pivot to the general election, then you might see more of a contrast between Trump and Biden on this position.”

As for how long the college campus protests across the country would go on, Keena said it depends how much time is left in the semester and what continues to happen with the war.

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