There is historical precedent for breaking with a sitting president on the campaign trail. Hubert Humphrey, who was the vice president for Lyndon B. Johnson and ran for president in 1968, broke with his boss on the Vietnam War.
Gil Barndollar, a nonresident senior fellow at Defense Priorities, said Harris would benefit from putting daylight between her position and Biden by drawing a harder line on Israel, though he added it “takes political guts.”
“Fundamentally, it’s a lack of courage or creativity,” he said. “Her incoherence and inability to answer these questions really reflects the state of someone who is speaking for a fractious Democratic Party on this [issue] and is trying to appease everybody and satisfy no one.”
The Biden administration has also pushed for months to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 42,000 Palestinians have died since Hamas initiated the war on Oct. 7, 2023, by invading southern Israel, killing some 1,200 and taking around 250 hostages.
But the U.S. has seen efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the 100 remaining hostages stymied by both Hamas and Netanyahu.
On the campaign trail, Harris has spoken about the suffering in Gaza in a way that Biden has not, but she has failed to win over anti-war protesters, which could hurt her among progressives, young voters and Arab-Americans.
The “Abandon Harris” group, which was behind the push to cast protest voters against Biden in the Democratic primary, endorsed the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the presidential race on Monday.
Hudhayfah Ahmad, a spokesperson for the Abandon Harris movement, hit back on criticism that voting for a third-party will only help former President Trump, who is strongly pro-Israel, explaining the objective was “holding the party that is currently in power accountable for the atrocities that we have been witnessing.”
“We’re also working to uplift those who we feel embody the message that we have, the values that we have,” he said. “Harris has the power to break away from Biden’s foreign policy today.”
Critics have slammed Harris for a Saturday post on X that pledged millions in aid for the people of Lebanon.
“Harris’s messaging on the escalation that’s been taking place has been horrific,” Ahmad said. “The way she speaks about what’s going on, particularly in Lebanon, you’d think she’s talking about a natural disaster.”
There are also concerns about Harris among Israel’s supporters.
Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said both Trump and Biden have stronger pro-Israel records than Harris.
“I suspect that Trump might get a historic amount of Jewish support,” he said. “Whatever issues some Jews might have with him, he has a very pro-Israel record and he’s been out there condemning antisemitism.”
Makovsky expressed concern that Harris would be overly sympathetic to Palestinians, or overly critical of Israel, if elected. And he noted Harris didn’t pick Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) as her running mate, which he suggested could have helped her with the Jewish vote.
There’s a real concern that Biden might be the last real, strong Zionist that’s elected Democratic president. I hope that’s not true, but there’s certainly, I think a concern about it, given where the party has been going,” he said.
Like Biden, Harris has strongly backed Israel’s right to defend itself while also acknowledging the suffering in Gaza, a balancing act on display Tuesday night when she appeared on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert.
“There is pain, pain and suffering that is happening in that region of the world,” she said, adding the U.S. “must work and not lose hope and not throw up our hands around the role we must play in urging and seeking and building toward a resolution.”
Alp Sevimlisoy, a millennium fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Harris would benefit from a simpler, refined message to voters that is focused on defending American interests, arguing she should “double down on patriotism” and take from the Republican playbook.
“Her approach has to become less of a we are protecting certain, specific countries and it needs to become more of Americans are under threat here, American interests are under threat,” he said. “This is a much clearer message for the electorate. It resonates much better.”
But that message is unlikely to satisfy progressive and Arab-American voters, and Harris is less than a month away from Election Day, with polls showing her in a close matchup with Trump.
One of the most closely watched swing states is Michigan, which has a large Arab-American population. In the primary, when Biden was still running, more than 100,000 voters chose uncommitted instead of the president in a protest vote for his handling of the Gaza war.
A poll released last week showed Trump ahead of Harris among Arab-American voters, an example of the eroding support from a group that more often leans Democratic.
Harris met with Muslim and Arab American community while in Flint, Mich., last week to discuss their perspectives on Gaza and Lebanon, and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) participated recently in a related virtual event with Engage Action.
Still, the outreach efforts are hampered by the fact that the fighting continues to escalate, and that U.S. calls to stop the fighting have failed.
The Biden administration had urged Israel against a Lebanon campaign and to accept a three-week truce with Hezbollah, but the U.S. is now saying it backs Israel’s plans for a limited operation.
Critics have frequently pointed to the fact that despite critical public comments and statements from the Biden administration, they have not used any leverage, such as weapons that Israel relies on, to hold back Netanyahu.
New research on Monday showed that the U.S. has spent more than $17 billion to support Israel throughout the more than yearlong war, the highest level since direct U.S. security aid began around 1959.
Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute, said Harris is struggling to defend Biden’s policies “because the administration is struggling to actually handle their own policy and then communicate what they’re trying to get done.”
“She and her team candidly suffer from this common affliction that you see among Democrats when it comes to the politics of foreign policy,” he said. “They’re constantly sort of trying to move things by millimeters in their messaging to appeal to different constituencies, and the message ends up sounding quite muddled.”
But Democrats still say her message is preferable to Trump’s.
John LaBombard, former communications director to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and other Democratic senators, said “winnable voters who will decide this election understand that the world is a dangerous place.”
“And the vice president’s demonstrated steady, thoughtful approach can help convince those voters that she’s the right person for this difficult job compared to the reckless, chaotic approach to the world stage they saw in former President Trump,” he said.