Letter to Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin on Voter Engagement on Gaza and DNC Post-Election Review

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Dear Chair Martin,

Congratulations on your recent election as chair of the Democratic National Committee. Since last fall, Democrats have been debating why they underperformed in the 2024 elections and some have been quick to blame voters instead of confronting difficult truths about the choices made by President Biden and Vice President Harris’ presidential campaigns to villainize and ignore the demands of its multiracial and multi-generational base, including the anti-war, pro-peace movement. We agree with your vision that “Democrats need to prioritize a multiracial, multigenerational working-class agenda that brings people back into our camp” and that the party "must be deliberate about understanding why voters moved away from Democrats."

The party cannot let Republican mega-donors drive the party away from Democrats’ core base of support: young people, Black, brown, and working class, who are the present and future of the party. If Democrats want to bring back a winning coalition, they must start facing clear truths, even if they are uncomfortable—that includes the uncomfortable truths of the failures of the party itself. Months before the election, polls showed that a large majority of the Democratic base–77% of Democrats, 77% of all voters under 30, 75% of Black voters, 66% of women, and 64% of Hispanic voters–support ending US-supplied weapons to Israel, and 62% of Jewish voters support weapons restrictions to Israel. Instead of shifting policy and ending the US-backed violence in Gaza, the Biden-Harris administration kept supplying Israel with more weapons. 

The chasm between the Democratic base and the Harris campaign could have been narrowed and course-corrected months prior to the election if the Harris campaign had chosen to heed not only the polling but also the direct outreach from lifelong Democrats sounding the alarm on this issue, and properly engaged with what voters were directly saying they cared about. It was recently reported that senior officials on the Harris presidential campaign instituted protocols to mark concerns about Gaza from potential voters as a “No response” and not collect data on voters who expressed that the Biden administration’s policy toward Palestine/Israel was affecting their vote. 

These protocols raise serious questions about the campaign strategy in an election where the Democratic presidential nominee received over six million fewer votes than in 2020. The pattern of disregarding and ignoring the issues Democratic voters care about, may it be rising costs of living or ending U.S. complicity in war crimes abroad, will not lead to winning elections. An analysis of AP Votecast data estimates that as many as 19 million Biden 2020 voters did not turn out to vote. 

Post-election polling conducted by YouGov found “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was the top concern (29%) of voters who voted for President Biden in 2020 and cast a ballot for someone besides Harris in 2024. That includes 38% of these voters in Arizona, 32% in Michigan, 32% in Wisconsin, and 36% of voters under 45. By a nearly 4:1 margin, Biden 2020 voters who cast a ballot for someone besides Harris, including nonvoters, said they would have been more likely (36%) to vote for her if she pledged to withhold weapons to Israel, rather than less likely (10%). And by a 7:1 margin, Biden 2020 voters who did vote for Harris in swing states said they would have been more enthusiastic (35%) if she pledged to withhold weapons to Israel, rather than less likely (5%). Once again, the poll reflected the reality that Gaza is a central issue for many Democratic voters and that ignoring the base and expecting winning results are incompatible with each other. 

The lessons to be learned from this election cannot and should not be to lean into resentment politics, or back away from the social movements that, in past election cycles, pushed Democrats to power. If Democrats neglect the anti-war movement, they will be ceding this space to candidates who are comfortable lying to the electorate about being the party “for peace.” To ensure that we learn the right lessons from the 2024 election cycle the undersigned organizations make the following requests for any post-election reviews the DNC undertakes.

  • A dedicated analysis of how the Biden administration’s Palestine/Israel policy and the Harris campaign’s platform affected voter behavior

  • An audit and transparent explanation of the protocols that were in place concerning voters who responded to canvassers, texts, and emails voicing concern about violence in Gaza and relevant data collection practices

  • New policies that would require voters concerned about Palestine/Israel to be properly categorized and their data collected

  • A meeting with the undersigned organizations to gather information about their own voter engagement experiences in advance of the report’s release

  • DNC appointments to ensure representation reflects the Democratic electorate 

  • Supporting a ban on super PAC spending in Democratic primaries, including Republican-backed super PACs like AIPAC’s United Democracy Project that spend millions of dollars to defeat Democratic candidates whose views align with the majority of Democratic voters

We look forward to engaging with you to ensure that the concerns of the base of the Democratic Party, which overwhelmingly reflect humanity for all,  including freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people, are taken into account in future election cycles to ensure the Democratic Party is able to effectively engage with the voters they will need to win going forward.

Sincerely,

IMEU Policy Project

IfNotNow Movement 

Gen-Z for Change

Justice Democrats