Throughout the 2024 presidential election, pro-Palestinian voters said they faced a difficult dilemma with their voting choices amid criticism of the United States’ connection to Israel’s military bombardment of Gaza.
During Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign as the Democratic presidential nominee, she expressed strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself, while emphasizing the need for a two-state solution. Meanwhile, Republican President-elect Trump called himself Israel’s “protector” and has said Israel needs to quickly “finish what they started” in Gaza.
The Sun spoke to pro-Palestinian voters from the Cornell community who said they navigated a landscape where neither Harris nor Trump fully aligned with their values.
Prof. Eric Cheyfitz, literatures in English, said his decision to vote for Harris came down to determining the “lesser evil.” Cheyfitz said he was a “longtime critic of the [Israeli] regime” and expressed frustration at the lack of support for Palestine across both Trump’s and Harris’ campaigns.
“I’m not crazy about Harris and Biden, particularly because they have supported the genocide in Gaza, but I certainly don’t think Trump would be any better,” Cheyfitz said.
His politics, Cheyfitz explained, have a long history of leaning more progressive than the Democratic Party, but he voted for Harris due to her prioritizing protecting reproductive rights, keeping his wife and four daughters in mind.
Other pro-Palestinian voters saw the 2024 presidential election as an opportunity to make a statement by rejecting both major parties altogether. For these voters, the election was not just about which presidential candidate would win the White House, but about making their voices heard by expressing support for the values of third-party candidates.
Sharif Ewais-Orozco, a Palestinian-American former Cornell employee and a founding member of the Coalition for Mutual Liberation — a pro-Palestinian student activism group — said he campaigned for both Hillary Clinton’s and Joe Biden’s presidential campaigns and consistently voted for the Democratic candidate in previous presidential elections.
However, Ewais-Orozco voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential nominee, in the 2024 presidential election in the swing state of North Carolina.
He said he chose not to vote for Harris because of the Democratic Party’s shift toward “more central, further right policies.”
“My vote for Jill Stein was mainly a protest vote,” Ewais-Orozco said, attributing his support for Stein to her pledge to end the genocide in Gaza.
Cornell’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America has been heavily involved in pro-Palestinian campus protests and has denounced both Trump and the Democratic Party.
Nick Wilson ’26, YDSA co-chair and a Sun columnist, wrote in Claudia De la Cruz of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Wilson said that he chose to vote for a third-party candidate with the understanding that New York was a “safe blue state.” He emphasized the importance of sending a message to the Democratic Party.
“They’ve deliberately ignored widespread outrage over what’s happening in Palestine,” Wilson said. “That’s morally despicable and pragmatically a poor choice.”
Another member of the YDSA, Sara Almosawi ’25, also cast her vote for De la Cruz in New York State. She said she “is not a single issue voter” but did heavily consider both Trump’s and Harris’ “support and bankrolling of the genocide.” Almosawi emphasized that her vote for De la Cruz was a step toward building an alternative to the two-party system which, she said, “ultimately will not liberate us.”
“My vote is a protest vote for Gaza, but it is also a vote in favor of an alternative to the two-party system,” Almosawi said.
Amani Agrawal ’27 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].