War Decides Elections
David Swanson / DavidSwanson.org
(January 18, 2025) — You would never know it from US corporate media, but there is an interesting poll on one of the things Kamala Harris could have done to win the 2024 presidential election. The poll has dramatic, newsworthy findings. It was done by a polling company very frequently reported on by corporate media (YouGov). It’s about the single biggest corporate news story of 2024 and about people (Donald Trump and Kamala Harris) featured this week in many, many other corporate news stories.
Reporting on it can be found at Drop Site and (in a very, very short article) at the Miami Herald, and not much if anywhere else.
Both of those articles report (as found here) that, among people who voted for Biden in 2020 and either for someone else or for nobody in 2024, the most important issue deciding their vote for 29% of them was ending Israel’s violence in Gaza — a higher percentage than for any other issue asked about.
Both of those articles also repeat the information found here that in swing states the number was 20%. It was actually higher than 20% in three key states below, at least for those who changed their vote rather than withholding it:
Biden 2020 voters who cast a ballot for someone besides Harris who say their top issue was ending Israel’s violence in Gaza in key battleground states:
Arizona – 38%
Michigan – 32%
Wisconsin – 32%
Pennsylvania – 19%
Flipping three of those very narrowly divided states would have flipped the election. Drop Site adds, from I know not where:
- Georgia: 6%
- Nevada: 13%
Confusingly, the Miami Herald links for the above information to what seems to be a poll of those Biden voters in swing states who did vote for Harris, for whom “Ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the top deciding issue for only 3% of them.
There are endless caveats. Any poll depends on how it is worded, what questions precede the question you’re looking at, and how the extreme vagueness of the thing is interpeted. But there are four additional arguments that should be considered.
First, this poll is only looking at people who voted for a particular grotesque warmonger in 2020 and not for a particular one in 2024. For many of these people, clearly there was something about the latest warmongering that they could no longer stomach. (Unlike those Biden voters who stuck with Harris, for 97% of whom war had not become the top decisive issue.)
But these voters are vastly outnumbered by those eligible voters who voted for nobody or a “third-party” candidate in 2020 and then voted for either nobody or somebody other than Harris in 2024. Nobody has polled these people to ask whether they would have voted for Harris (or Trump) if one of them had taken a clear stand for peace. But opposition to the war was certainly the noisiest reason heard from those announcing that they would either not vote or vote third-party, including many who had done just the same in the previous election.
Second, it’s not just damning that the corporate media is avoiding the story of this one poll, and the general existence of the genocide in Gaza. It’s also damning that there are not any other polls asking these questions. Or are there? Polls that are done and not published cannot make news. If a poll on a major topic stands alone with results undesired by corporate media, it’s possible that it stands for itself and any number of polls that have not been made public or have not been conducted because the results were as predictable as mainatained by all of us who long predicted them.
Third, the significance of war and peace in these numbers should not be understood entirely in terms of what Harris said and did or entirely in terms of Palestine, but also in terms of what Trump/Vance said and in terms of all the major wars. Trump did not just demand military spending increases sufficient to coat the Earth in weaponry or promise that there would be hell to pay. He also promised to end wars even before being inaugurated, including the war in Ukraine. How many people who did not vote for Biden in 2020 were influenced to vote for Trump in 2024 by his peace talk?
Fourth, some additional national responses in this same poll bolster the case for the importance of the issue of Palestine:
If Kamala Harris had pledged to break from President Biden’s policy toward Gaza by promising to withhold additional weapons to Israel for committing human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians, would it have made you [more or less] likely to vote for Harris, or would it not make any difference?
Asked of those who voted for anyone other than Harris, or did not vote
More likely . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36%
Less likely . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10%
If Kamala Harris had pledged to break from President Biden’s policy on the following issues, would it have made you [more or less] likely to vote for Harris, or would it not make any difference?
Asked of those who voted for anyone other than Harris, or did not vote
More likely Less likely
Providing weapons to Israel 34% More likely, 17% Less likely
If the Democratic party were to pressure Israel to end military rule over Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, would it make you feel [more or less] favorably about the Democratic party, or would it not make any difference?
More favorably . . . . . 49%
Less favorably . . . . . . 10%
Next, think back to how you voted in 2024. You will see issues that some say may have impacted their vote. For each of those, please say how you feel about that issue.
Asked of those who voted in the 2024 Presidential Election
This issue was important to me and candidates’ positions on this issue swayed how I voted.
The violence between Israel and Gaza 47%
With this update in mind, I want to repeat something I said two months ago:
Peace Decides Elections
(November 20, 2024) — The United States just held a presidential election between two pro-war, militarist candidates, each of whom could have been expected to shift yet more funding into war preparations, to arm the genocide in Palestine, and to wage and threaten war with abandon. And yet peace was, as it often is, a deciding factor.
Many voters demanding peace were otherwise inclined to vote for Kamala Harris. Had she simply committed to ceasing to illegally arm just one war, she probably would have won.
Many voters demanding peace squinted their eyes hard enough to see peace in Donald Trump. Had he not mixed peace along with war into his word salad, he probably would have lost.
A poll published in May suggested that voters in swing states would be significantly more likely to vote for then-candidate Biden were he to embargo arms to Israel. A second poll from August showed the same (minus Biden). A third poll from September showed the same (for Harris).
Peace is far from the only factor that swung this election, and many other elections. Numerous other obvious ways to win or lose could be examined. But it is interesting how resilient peace is as a determining factor no matter how little discussed by candidates and corporate pundits.
In 2020 Trump lost after refusing to end the war on Afghanistan to a Joe Biden promising to do so and pretending he hadn’t led the charge for the war on Iraq.
In 2016 a peace-preaching Trump beat out a Hillary Clinton popularly understood to be simply drooling for more wars. Polling in swing states showed that military families opposed to more wars from Clinton made the difference — as did many other factors, any one of which could easily have changed the result.
In 2012, as in 2008, Obama sold himself as a peace candidate, the facts notwithstanding, and he defeated pro-war candidates including, in 2008, the most pro-war candidate we’ve seen, John McCain.
In 2000 George W. Bush campaigned against “nation-building,” and the Supreme Court stole the election for him, but in 2004 he campaigned against a candidate in John Kerry who both supported and opposed Bush’s warmaking. Peace voters had no one to vote for.
In 2006, however, peace voters gave the Democrats both houses of Congress, with ending the war on Iraq the top motivation in exit polls. The Democrats immediately escalated the war on Iraq, sending peace advocates into the despair that opened them up to fantasizing about Obama two years later.
As you go back through the years of US elections, peace is prominent. Kamala Harris pulled a Hubert Humphrey, choosing loss over peace, but Humphrey got there first. Nixon won pretending to be for peace — on the model of Lyndon Johnson and Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.
“Elect me for more wars” has never worked.
“Elect me for peace” has worked many times — including for many a warmonger.
If people could vote directly on public policy, the world would be a much more peaceful place.
Addendum
A poll published in May suggested that voters in swing states would be significantly more likely to vote for then-candidate Biden were he to embargo arms to Israel. A second poll from August showed the same (minus Biden). A third poll from September showed the same (for Harris).