WASHINGTON — Some Democrats are urging their party to redouble its efforts to reach college students, a critical voting bloc, in light of high-profile protests that have taken over campuses.
The energy, activism, and voting power of students have long been a foundation of the party. But as anger at the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has spilled onto campuses around the country, Democrats from campus leaders to progressive members of Congress have begun sounding the alarm.
“He needs to do so much more. . . . Without putting too fine a point on it, I fear for [President] Biden, and I fear for our democracy. The student uprising that we’re seeing isn’t really doing him any favors,” said Baybars Charkas, president of Penn State College Democrats. “He risks really losing it, and really fumbling it, when he doesn’t really have the margin for error.”
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Progressive Representative Ro Khanna of California said Democrats need to start spending more time on college campuses engaging with students on issues including Gaza, especially in battleground states.
“When you’re talking about the College Democrats [of America], you’re talking about the young Bill Clintons. These aren’t activists, these are future Democratic leaders. . . . These are the ones that are going to be future politicians. So if they’re saying that there’s a problem, we should be listening,” said Khanna, who has traveled as a surrogate for the Biden campaign and has called for a cease-fire. “They want us to win the election. They’re just speaking up so that we’re not sleepwalking into the election.”
Whether the disillusionment coming from campuses would be enough to cost Biden the election is unclear — many of the same people criticizing him over his approach to the war remain firmly in his camp.
“As college Democrats we are committed to the reelection of President Biden and Democrats across down-ballot races in every corner of the nation. However, as representatives of youth across the country, we reserve the right to criticize our own party when it fails to represent youth voices,” the College Democrats of America, which represents more than 250 chapters across the country, said in a statement last week. “Each day that Democrats fail to stand united for a permanent ceasefire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party.”
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The Democratic National Committee did not answer questions about whether it is changing anything in its strategy on college outreach in light of the protests. Mia Ehrenberg, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said the president “will continue to show up and communicate with young voters on the issues they care about.”
“Joe Biden will beat [Donald] Trump with the backing of young voters who know he’s kept his promises and is committed to delivering on the issues that matter most to them: to fight climate change, reform gun laws, reduce student loans, and build a country that moves us forward, not backward,” Ehrenberg said in a statement.
The Biden campaign launched a Students for Biden-Harris organizing program in March meant to reach students “on campus, online, and beyond.” The campaign plans to have campus organizers in every battleground state. And it hired its youth engagement director at the start of the year, a role the campaign said isn’t usually filled until the summer of an election year.
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But Biden’s comments condemning violent protests last week — after which he answered simply “no” when asked whether the protests had made him rethink any of his policies related to the region — were not received well by young people, said Sunjay Muralitharan, a DNC member and vice president of College Democrats of America.
“We are the margin of victory, and we are well aware of that, and . . . what I’ve realized from talking to a lot of young voters [is] they’re not willing to vote for a lesser of two evils. They’re willing to vote for someone who is inspiring, and I really hope the Biden administration realizes that and pivots their messaging,” Muralitharan said. “There needs to be more on-the-ground, get-out-the-vote effort when it comes to young people.”
Last weekend, Young Democrats of America, which calls itself the “largest youth-led, partisan political organization” with more than 20,000 members across the country, also put out a statement criticizing Biden.
“President Biden’s remarks that ‘Dissent should never lead to disorder,’ ignores the history of our country and flies in the face of its values,” the statement said. “From the streets of Selma to the classrooms of Little Rock — students have always been at the heart of political dissent in America.” The group has endorsed the Biden campaign.
But how much do voters prioritize this issue over others? The spring Harvard Youth Poll of 18-to-29-year-olds found that other issues including the economy and abortion ranked as more important than “Israel/Palestine” at the time the poll was taken in mid-March, ahead of the campus protests reaching their boiling point. And in a recent poll by The Economist and YouGov, Biden led former president Donald Trump by 21 percentage points among adult citizens ages 18-29.
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“We already had plans to have the most robust youth-led mobilization effort in history, and we’re going to continue to build on those efforts,” said Jack Lobel, a spokesperson for Voters of Tomorrow, one of the youth-focused groups that has endorsed the Biden campaign. “Our plans have not changed. We will be communicating on the issues that are most important to young voters, and we have quite some time to do it. So not much has changed in terms of our efforts.”
Still, the campus protests are a warning that many Democrats say their party can’t afford to ignore.
“We see politicians and campaigns say that, ‘We want to meet you where you’re at, we’re going to make a TikTok,’ or ‘We care about these votes,’ so they include a youth speaker or something like that,” said Annie Wu Henry, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic strategist who has worked for multiple high-profile Democrats including Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. “Young people don’t just want to be included, they want to be heard and they want their voices and the issues that matter to them to be taken seriously just like any other voting bloc.”
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In the meantime, Republicans see the protests as Biden-fueled turmoil and evidence that Trump should be reelected.
“Biden’s handling of the protests only multiplies the discontent that a lot of young Republicans have toward the administration, and I know it will increase [voter] turnout amongst conservative-leaning students,” said Matthew Trott, president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill College Republicans. “This only really makes us more fired up to go vote for Trump in November.”
Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka can be reached at lissandra.villa@globe.com. Follow her @LissandraVilla. Charlotte Ehrlich can be reached at charlotte.ehrlich.globe.com.