Senate races are roiled by campus protests over the war in Gaza as campaign rhetoric sharpens
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The student protest movement disrupting college campuses, classes and graduations over the war in Gaza is also fueling Senate battles across the country, as Democrats move gingerly over internal divisions and Republicans play up their rivals’ differences.
The political impact of the protests on the White House campaign has attracted significant attention, with opposition to President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war reverberating from Columbia to UCLA. The rapidly evolving landscape of protests is also shaping crucial Senate races.
In many states, tent camps have sprung up at universities where Democrats are defending seats this election year that are essential to maintaining their razor-thin majority in the Senate. Police action and arrests followed at some schools.
The protests have sharpened campaign rhetoric in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Ohio and Michigan, among others. Republican candidates in California and Florida have stepped up their criticism of the Democratic president over the US response to the war or chaotic scenes on US campuses.
Some Republicans have shown up at encampments, including one at George Washington University, not far from the White House. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who is up for re-election, said on social media that he went there to show solidarity with Jewish students. “We must do everything we can to protect them,” he said.
Republican candidate David McCormick said during a visit to the University of Pennsylvania that protesters at the Ivy League school did not know the “difference between right and wrong, right and wrong” and created a hostile atmosphere for Jewish students.
McCormick has criticized the lack of leadership and moral clarity on the part of his Democratic opponent, Sen. Bob Casey, as well as Biden and school administrators who face accusations of harboring anti-Semitism.
“What’s happening on campuses is clearly a test of leadership and moral courage, both for college presidents and for our leaders and for Senator Casey and President Biden,” McCormick said in an interview.
Israel and its supporters say the protests are anti-Semitic, a charge that Israeli critics say is sometimes used to silence legitimate opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic comments or violent threats, protest organizers, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at saving the lives of Palestinian civilians.
Many Democrats, from Biden on down, avoided saying much about the situation until recently, when college crackdowns began and comparisons were made to anti-war protests of the 1960s.
Even then, Democrats balanced their criticism of anti-Semitism and rule-breaking with the need to protect the rights to free speech and peaceful protest. Some have tried to avoid sides in protests that have pitted pro-Israel versus pro-Palestinian Democrats against each other and divided key parts of the party’s base, including Jewish, Arab-American and younger voters.
Republicans, meanwhile, have railed against what they characterized as ambiguity or silence by Democrats. Republicans professed solidarity with Jews against anti-Semitism while condemning the protests as lawless.
Mike Rogers, a Republican seeking an open Senate seat in Michigan, said student protesters in Columbia were “Hamas sympathizers.” In California, Republican Senate candidate Steve Garvey called them “terrorists” who practice “terrorism disguised as free speech.”
In five states, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate campaign arm of Republicans, is using protests in digital ads over student loan forgiveness, saying Democrats want to pay off the loans of students “radicalized by the far left.” and who are “threatening Jews,” “attacking the police,” and “behaving like terrorists.”
McCormick and others say that universities that, in their view, tolerate anti-Semitism should lose federal funding and visas should be revoked for any foreign student who incites violence or expresses pro-Hamas sentiments in the camps.
Casey, long a staunch supporter of Israel, has criticized anti-Semitist acts on campuses and pointed to legislation he supported as a way to ensure the Department of Education takes action.
“Students of course have the right to protest peacefully, but when it crosses the line, whether into violence or discrimination, then we have a duty to intervene and stop that behavior,” Casey said Thursday as he urged colleagues to approve his bill.
Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, who is Jewish and is up for re-election, said she was “shocked” by displays of anti-Semitism on campuses and, like Casey, called on the department to hold schools accountable.
In California, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic nominee for an open Senate seat, addressed the rally in Columbia, saying “anti-Semitic and hateful rhetoric is on display loud and proud.” Accused by Garvey of being “incredibly quiet” about the protests, Schiff, who is Jewish, voted for a House bill similar to Casey’s and released a statement condemning violence and the “explicit, repeated attacks and intimidation of Jewish students’ convict.
Republicans elsewhere claimed that statements from Democrats were ambiguous and inadequate.
Republicans called out Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, after he told an Axios reporter last week that he had “no intention of talking about the politics of that.” People always have the right to speak out and they should do so.”
His Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, accused Brown of “wholeheartedly supporting these despicable and violent anti-Semitic demonstrations.”
Later, at a news conference, Brown provided more detailed comments. “Students want to make their voices heard, they need to do it in a way that is non-violent, they need to do it in a way that does not express hate, and laws need to be enforced,” he said.
In Michigan, which has a relatively significant Muslim population, Biden’s handling of the war is expected to play a major role in the presidential and Senate races.
Rogers, a favorite for the Republican nomination, thanked New York City police for confronting protesters and “standing up to protect Jewish students at Columbia from the deep-seated hatred we have witnessed from Hamas sympathizers on their campus.”
Republicans argued that U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for Senate, had not spoken out forcefully against the protests in Columbia, her alma mater, and that it took five days before they even started saying anything.
Slotkin, who is Jewish, said in an April 22 statement — the most recent wave of demonstrations began April 17 in Columbia — that “the use of intimidation, anti-Semitic signs or slogans, or intimidation, is unacceptable.”
It was, she suggested, a complicated subject.
“I prefer to be thoughtful and take more time rather than have an obvious answer to any question,” Slotkin said in an interview. “But especially this one.”
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Associated Press reporters Adam Beam in Sacramento, California; Joey Cappalletti in Lansing, Mich.; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; Tassanee Vejpongsa in Philadelphia; and Stephany Matat in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.