Will young voters ditch Biden over Israel? For most, it’s not a priority.

When asked what issues are top of mind as they prepare to vote in their first presidential election this November, Cassidy Mazyck and Alexia McNamara, students at Virginia Commonwealth University, list several. 

“Probably guns and women’s rights. Abortion is a huge one,” says Ms. Mazyck, who is studying clinical radiation science.

“I would say jobs or women’s rights,” says Ms. McNamara, an information systems major.

“Oh, and student loans for sure,” adds Ms. Mazyck. 

Neither mentions the Middle East.

The omission seems striking – given that they are sitting on yellow Adirondack chairs less than 40 feet away from the university’s “liberation zone,” where a group of their peers is loudly pounding on bucket drums and chanting slogans like “Israel is a racist state!” and “Biden, Biden you will see, Palestine will be free!” Later that evening, the protest would turn violent, with police using tear gas to clear the encampment and protesters throwing objects at officers. Several arrests were made.

As colleges and universities across the United States continue to grapple with student protests over Israel’s controversial military campaign in Gaza, it is raising new questions about whether President Joe Biden will pay a price at the ballot box among young people, a key voting bloc for Democrats. In remarks from the White House Thursday morning, Mr. Biden said he supported peaceful protest but not violence, intimidation, or “chaos.” Asked if the demonstrations on campuses had caused him to reconsider U.S. policy in the region, he responded, “No.” 

Certainly, some students upset about Israel and Gaza might decide to stay home or cast a protest vote against Mr. Biden – and in a close election, even a small loss of support can hurt. 

Yet for all the passions currently on display, polling suggests the Middle East is not the determining issue for most young people that headlines make it out to be. Indeed, when it comes to political priorities, the younger generation isn’t all that different from older ones: They’re mostly focused on the economy.

Nearly one-third of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 rank the economy as their primary concern, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics poll released last month. That’s compared with only 2% who rank the Israeli-Palestinian conflict first. A majority of young voters also say they don’t follow national politics closely, and nearly three-quarters don’t consider themselves politically engaged or politically active. 

“The loudest voices aren’t usually representative of where the majority of folks are, even within one generation,” says Stefan Hankin, a Democratic pollster. With Election Day still six months away, he adds, there’s plenty of time for any number of issues to rise to the surface or fall away. “What exactly is going to be driving people come November is a big question mark.”

Overall, Americans’ interest in the Middle East has actually been declining, according to data from Mr. Hankin’s Trendency Research. And no generation has seen a greater drop-off than Generation Z, 64% of whose members reported paying attention to the Israeli-Palestinian issue in October, but only 38% of whom were paying attention come March.

Among those who are closely following it, however, most have grown increasingly critical of Israel’s actions.   

In the shadow of Virginia Commonwealth University’s library on Monday, about 50 young people, several wearing keffiyehs, march in a circle while a young woman leads call-and-response chants over a megaphone. Organizers pass out sunscreen and Gatorade beneath signs that read “Freedom by any means” and “From the river to the sea.” Like many protesters on other campuses across the country, these VCU students are demanding their school divest from companies with ties to Israel. 

“There’s just so much funding for Israel, and that goes to the bomb strikes,” says Isabelle Cofield, a medical science student who has joined the demonstration and credits social media for “helping spread the issue” among her generation. When asked whom she plans to vote for in November, Ms. Cofield groans and says she’s unsure who will be the “lesser of two evils.”

This uncertainty was shared by many protesters and bystanders alike on VCU’s campus – regardless of their opinions on the situation in the Middle East. Almost a dozen students tell the Monitor they plan to vote in the presidential election this fall, but they’re not sure for whom.

Niya Shorts, for example, a criminal justice student who’s studying in the spring sunshine a few blocks from the protest, says she’s most concerned about affordable schooling, housing, and gun control. But she says she plans to “look again” at both Mr. Biden and former President Donald Trump before making a decision.

Many young people just aren’t focused on politics right now, says Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of Tufts University’s CIRCLE, which studies youth civic engagement. “The peak of registration and mobilization for young people is much later, more towards the end of the summer.” 

Still, some students say the situation in Gaza will absolutely influence their vote. Sareen Haddad, a Palestinian psychology student leading VCU’s protest, says that she and many of her peers plan either to not vote or to cast ballots for third-party candidates like the Green Party’s Jill Stein, who was arrested this week at a pro-Palestinian protest on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.  

“For anybody who currently is in a position of power that is not calling for an immediate cease-fire, supporting humanitarian aid into Gaza, and also defunding the Israeli military, the support from my generation, at least, plummets completely,” says Ms. Haddad. “I can tell you for sure that anybody who supports the Palestinian cause is not for Biden – and anybody who supports the Palestinian cause and has a heart is not for Trump, either.”