It is commonly said that in U.S. elections, “bread and butter” issues are what drive people to vote and make choices, with concerns about inflation and cost of living topping the list of voters’ priorities.
There is wisdom that domestic issues like foreign policy do not determine elections. “The problem is the economy, you idiot,” one adviser said ahead of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992. At the time, then-President George H. W. Bush had just ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and the foreign policy ‘victory’ did not guarantee Bush a victory in the opinion polls. This concept has become a staple of subsequent election cycles, but historians and analysts warn that it is only partially true.
They warn that foreign policy matters in the U.S. presidential election. This is especially true in elections that are so tight that they are decided by extremely narrow margins, as the current election promises.
The biggest issues are foreign policy-related concerns such as immigration and climate change, along with the United States spending enormous amounts of money and becoming increasingly entangled due to the prolongation of the war in Ukraine and the expansion of wars in the Middle East. Given the priorities of many voters, it is clear that the economy will not be the only factor determining how Americans vote next month.
Although the economy still tops the list, a September voter poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found: 62% of voters ranked foreign policy as a very important issue to them. Foreign policy concerns were especially central to Trump voters (70%). But 54% of Harris voters also ranked foreign policy as their main priority. That was as many people as selected Supreme Court appointments.
Gregory Afthandilian, a scholar of Middle East politics and U.S. foreign policy, wrote in a recent paper that “foreign policy issues could tip the balance in highly competitive races, such as this year’s matchup between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.” paper. In particular, voters’ views on how candidates will handle the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah and Russia-Ukraine wars could play a decisive role in battleground states and elections.”
American Election Myths
The idea that foreign policy matters little in U.S. presidential elections has only gained ground over the past 30 years. Until then, in pre-election polls of Americans, 30 to 60 percent of respondents ranked foreign policy issues as the most important issue facing the United States. By the end of the Cold War, that figure had fallen to 5%.
“This is largely a post-Cold War idea,” Jeffrey A Friedman, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College who focuses on the politics of foreign policy decision-making, told Al Jazeera.
Even after 9/11, the United States launched years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which cost Americans dearly. 8 trillion dollarsIn addition to costing thousands of lives, foreign policy played a secondary role in the election, although it helped former President George W. Bush win re-election in 2004. In part, that’s because he was able to leverage his role as a leader in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Friedman noted that in the past, a candidate’s ability to portray himself as strong and decisive was more important than the specifics of the foreign policy decisions he would make.
He cited former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, who paved the way for U.S. expansion in Vietnam during his 1964 presidential campaign. Johnson knew that Americans did not want a war in Vietnam, but he also knew he had to show that he was “going to get tough on communism,” Friedman said.
“Voters have always been skeptical of the use of force abroad, but they are also skeptical of leaders who appear to stand down in the face of foreign aggression,” he added. “Presidential candidates are trying to convince voters that they are tough enough to be commander in chief. “They don’t want to commit to involving the United States in an armed conflict, but they also need to avoid the perception that they will back down if challenged.”
As Israel promises to expand its year-long war from Gaza to Lebanon and plunge the entire region, and possibly the United States, into a larger conflict, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are trying to do just that.
Like the protests against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois became the scene of mass protests that were violently suppressed by police. American support for Israel has caused deep divisions within the United States and presents a foreign policy issue that candidates are regularly asked to address.
“Harris and Trump have a very common relationship on this issue,” Friedman added. “So what they are trying to do is project a vague sense that they will handle the conflict competently, without making any promises that could be divisive.”
let’s go vote
Making vague promises may be a strategy, but it may not be enough given America’s deep involvement in Israel’s wars in the Middle East, which it heavily subsidizes and now risks further entanglement with.
The imprecise science and razor-thin margins of opinion polls make it difficult to predict how much Americans’ disappointment with U.S. support for Israel will influence their vote and whether pro-Palestinian voters will vote for him or not. Third party, stay home or reluctantly vote for the continuation of President Joe Biden’s policies promised by Harris.
But the possibility that a protest vote in Gaza could influence the election is not so far-fetched, some opinion polls suggest.
Dahlia Mogahed, an academic at the Institute for Social Policy Understanding (ISPU), told Al Jazeera: “If Harris loses in swing states because Muslims didn’t vote for her, it will be directly because of Gaza,” he said. “The most important issue that Muslims say about how they will judge the candidates is their response to the war in Gaza.”
Mogahed cited the ISPU. study It was found that 65% of Muslim votes went to Biden in the 2020 election. That’s far more than the margins he won in key battleground states. Before Biden dropped out of the race in July, the number of Muslim voters who said they would support him again had fallen to 12%.
Harris has repeatedly stated her unwavering support for Israel and, although she has at times softened her language and used more empathetic language about the suffering of Palestinians, has signaled no intention to shift policy and what gains she has made. It’s unclear. Biden’s support has disappeared.
Although the ISPU study focused on Muslim American voters, a poll of Arab American voters found similar results, with the foreign policy issue of the war in Gaza again being cited as a key factor in the election.
Friedman said there is historical precedent for this, noting that voting groups such as Cuban Americans of Florida oppose normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba or Eastern European communities in the mid-1990s in support of Clinton’s push to expand NATO. But while in the past certain groups supported one candidate over another because of their foreign policy preferences, phenomena like the Uncommitted National Movement are new and a sign of deep disillusionment with American foreign policy that transcends partisanship.
“The notion that certain demographic groups have strong foreign policy preferences is not particularly new,” Friedman said. “What I’m not sure we’ve seen before is a fairly blatant threat from the community to withhold their vote for a candidate they would normally be expected to support.”
But it is not just Muslims, Arab Americans and others, including many young voters, who see the war in Gaza as the most pressing issue in this foreign policy-critical election cycle.
Rasha Mubarak, a community organizer in Orlando, Florida, told Al Jazeera that in many communities, especially those with the least resources, foreign policy is often seen as a “domestic issue” rather than a distant issue.
“American voters are able to assess the material conditions of their daily lives and connect them to what is happening in Gaza,” Mubarak said, adding that social needs from health care to hurricane relief would benefit from the public resources the United States is investing to support. I mentioned that people understand that they will receive it. Military efforts abroad.
“[It’s] “It goes beyond the moral issue that nearly 200,000 Palestinians have lost their lives to Israeli bombing and genocide,” Mubarak said. “American voters understand the interconnectedness.”
