These Gen Z Voters Are Choosing Kamala Harris. But Gaza Is Still a Sticking Point

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ix months ago, young people began camping out on college campuses across the country, demanding that President Joe Biden stop military aid to Israel and force an immediate cease-fire. Weeks later, high schoolers joined in.

At the time, 18-year-old Anaya Sayal was finishing her senior year in San Ramon. Halimah Houston, 20, was in her first year of community college in Richmond. Both were so upset by Biden’s support of Israel that they told KQED they wouldn’t vote for him.

“Everyone’s seeing him as ‘Genocide Joe,’” Houston said about President Joe Biden this spring. “It’s just like disappointment after disappointment; that’s what was going through my head.”

Houston and Sayal believed he wouldn’t take an outright stance against the war because he was too “scared” of losing voters. “So much of the older generations support Israel, but it’s a lot of the younger generations that are supporting Palestine,” Sayal said.

The two first-time voters watched through gritted teeth the ups and downs of the election cycle — from Biden as the Democratic nominee and two assassination attempts on Trump to the presidential debate and Biden’s decision to step down.

“Unfortunately, the only other option is Trump,” said Sayal, who is now in her first semester at UCLA. “You just got to pick the better of the two because there are no great options.”

Both Sayal and Houston breathed sighs of relief when Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee in August. The hope of change made it somewhat easy for the two to envision Harris as the next president.

“I’m a lot more excited now because before, it was just choosing between the better of the two evils,” Sayal said. “Overall, she would do a better job in office than Biden. But I think she’ll probably come under more scrutiny because she’s a woman of color.”

Political science experts don’t think the two young women’s last-minute switch is an anomaly. They believe that if enough young people turn out on Nov. 5, they could help sway the election because 18- to 24-year-olds are more numerous than older Americans who vote more frequently. However, not all young people have changed their minds like Houston and Sayal.

For some, the war in Gaza remains a top concern. More than one year has passed since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel. Since then, Israel has continued its unrelenting military assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

When Harris said she was pushing for a cease-fire at an August rally in Arizona, Houston and Sayal felt slightly better about her as the presidential nominee. But she’s also supported Israel’s right to defend itself and hasn’t said the U.S. should halt aid to Israel.

“We need to see the action, and I hope it comes to fruition soon,” Houston said. “By voting for Harris, I feel like there’s a shot of getting a cease-fire.”

However, not all progressive first-time voters support Harris due to frustrations over the U.S.’s support for Israel. Aniya Butler, a 19-year-old from Oakland, said she won’t vote for president this election and, instead, will focus on local priorities as a climate organizer.

As a young Black woman, Butler sees a vote for Harris as a betrayal to her ancestors because of the candidate’s lack of action on a cease-fire. Butler identifies with the struggles of Palestinians because her own family experienced slavery. She also said that not voting for president won’t impact California much because the state is deeply blue, and Harris is all but guaranteed to win its electoral votes.

“With these atrocities now to be on camera for all of us to see — Kamala, as a Black woman, has the responsibility to somehow ease and end that pain as someone who is literally the vice president of the United States,” said Butler, currently taking a gap year before starting at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

“She has not handled it well at all. It’s absolutely disgusting,” Butler added.

Social media’s influence on young voters

Polling experts like Mark Baldassare with the Public Policy Institute of California aren’t surprised that young voters like Houston and Sayal would shift their positions on voting for Harris.

“An election that was in the abstract after the March primary has now become very real, and the choices people have to make are real,” he said.

Baldassare said the candidate’s use of social media to sway young voters — from the brat-ification of Harris’ campaign to a fake AI-generated Taylor Swift endorsement of Trump — is shaping how young people vote.

“The more they see on social media, the more likely they are to go from being an infrequent voter to a voter this time because they want their voices to be heard,” he said.

However, he said that Harris and Trump’s use of social media over the last six months has shown mixed results. For some young voters like Sayal, Harris’ use of brat-green on social media and her appearances on podcasts like “Call Her Daddy” helped convince them to support her.

“It felt like, for the first time, a political candidate was trying to do something towards getting the attention of Gen Z,” Sayal said.

But for Butler, the attention the election has gained on social media, combined with images of war and human suffering, reinforced her view that Harris isn’t taking a cease-fire seriously.

“I think it serves as a reminder that times are oppressed for me, but they’re not [as] rough compared to what other people are experiencing right now,” she said.

Cathy Cohen, a University of Chicago political science professor and author of a national poll of young voters by GenForward and the university’s Institute of Politics, said her recent polling mirrors some young voters’ feelings, showing social media has garnered “excitement” for some voters but notes a “significant portion” would prefer a choice apart from Harris or Trump.

“Many of the issues animating their disgust and unhappiness prior to Harris joining the field still animate their concerns,” she said. “They’ve been told the importance of this election. They feel better about the choices, but they’re still not satisfied with them.”

‘A larger share of the pie’

Cohen’s October poll found that 52% of young voters aged 18 to 26 said they would definitely vote. When asked which issue is the country’s most important problem, Gaza ranked behind economic growth, inflation, income equality, immigration and threats to American democracy. Only 4% of the 18- to 26-year-olds she polled cited Gaza as their top concern. Another recent poll from Harvard shows that just 1% of young Americans surveyed ranked Gaza as the most concerning issue during this election cycle.

“It does surprise me,” she said. “We found that significant numbers of young people say that they don’t have an opinion on Gaza.”

Her team also asked which candidate would best handle the war in Gaza and secure a cease-fire — 37% said Trump, and 22% of 18- to 26-year-olds said Harris. Cohen said her polling showcases a pervasive idea that Trump is a “strong leader,” and his promises to end the war in Ukraine may mean he would help end the war in Gaza.

The data shows that Black and AAPI young people felt Harris would handle the war in Gaza better than Trump.

Other political experts like Baldassare predict a turnout similar to 2020 when around 50% of eligible voters aged 18 to 24 participated.

“I think things are in place at this point for having a high turnout, perhaps exceeding what we saw in 2020,” he said.

In April, Baldassare’s polling found that 26% of young voters — which he defines as 18 to 44 — in California were satisfied with the candidate choices this election. By September, that number had doubled to 50%, with “most of the change occurring among people who say they’re voting for Harris and Walz.”

“That’s a significant increase among the younger voters in California between April and September,” he said. “At this point in California, targeting young voters is working.”

The possibility that half of all young voters in California could turn out in this election is significant. Mindy Romero, director of the USC Center for Inclusive Democracy, notes that not all young voters agree on who should be president or how the next president should handle the war in Gaza.

“Young people care very much about the world around them, and they want to take action, but because of the disconnection they feel from the political process, and how it doesn’t bring them in, some will feel like voting is not an actionable stamp on the issues they care about,” she said.

Romero is unsure if young voters will turn out in force in November even though it’s “an enormously consequential election.” But she said if young people exercised their voting power at the polls, they could make a difference. She said voters between 18 and 24 outnumber those aged 65 to 74, who typically turn out in large numbers.

“If they voted at the same rate as older voters, they would have a larger share of the pie of voters who broke up the power of voters in November,” she said. “If that happened every election, my God, things would change.”

Sayal, now surrounded by young people at UCLA, longs for the day the presidential race isn’t defined by a two-party system. She’s excited that Harris could become the first woman of color to be president. Sayal knows the race is close but has hope that more Gen Z young adults will be eligible to vote in this election than four years ago.

“There’s definitely a lot more. And I think younger Gen Z voters are more likely to vote for Harris,” she said. “I think we could break the election.”