Do you recall Kevin de León? He’s an embattled member of the L.A. City Council now, but many people will remember him as a progressive firebrand who was elected president of the state Senate in 2014. Four years later, he ran for the U.S. Senate, challenging Dianne Feinstein from the left. He won the endorsement of the state Democratic Party. The conservative Feinstein, who outspent him $16,865,427 to $1,755,107, beat him by 8.4 points. He then ran for an L.A. City Council seat in a special election and won and everything pointed towards a bright future… until a 2021 private meeting with Fellow council member Gil Cedillo, union president Ron Herrera and the racist council president, Nury Martinez. A tape was leaked that ended the careers of everyone involved, except de León. Unlike the others, he refused to resign and he beat back a recall effort. He was the clear front-runner in the recent primary election for his seat. I asked, through a mutual friend, about his position on Gaza. He didn’t have one. I told him, through a mutual friend, it could cost him his reelection.
On election night, of the 8 candidates, he appeared to be coming in first and Assemblyman Miguel Santiago looked like the likely second. But as the votes continued being counted over the next couple of weeks, tenants’ rights lawyer Ysabel Jurado, pulled ahead of Santiago and finally ahead of de León. She was clearly the furthest left on the candidates— and the one campaigning against the genocide in Gaza. She still is, as she and de León head towards the general election.
The other day, on the local NBC television channel, de León tried paining Jurado as too far left and, out of the blue (literally), said "I just don't believe in the theories of progressivism." That’s a bad move in an inner city Democratic primary. She’s running a successful ad campaign based on Gaza, still not an issue for him.
As far as I can tell, there’s only one L.A. member of Congress with a tight reelection race, Jimmy Gomez, who came in first with 51.15% of the vote in a 5 man race. Runner-up David Kim is running to his left and is talking a lot about genocide in Gaza. If he beats Gomez, who is outspending him 10 to 1, that will be why. And that brings us to the newest Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics youth poll. Looking at 18-29 year olds, the pollsters found Biden way ahead— but not ahead enough to win. They also found broad support— 5 to 1— for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
If the election were held today, likely voters under 30 would break for Biden 56-37%— Biden ahead 6 points among men and 33 points among women. Biden leads slightly among white voters (by 3 points) but massively among young voters of color (43 points!). lead among college students is 23 points; he leads by 47 points among college graduates. The race is even among those not in college and without a four-year degree.
The bad news here is that Biden’s 19-point lead over Trump among the voters under 30 who are considered likely to turn out is significantly smaller than his 30-point advantage this time four years ago. John Della Volpe, the polling director, said “As the Biden/Trump rematch takes shape, we see strong levels of engagement and interest in voting among young Americans. Make no mistake, this is a different youth electorate than we saw in 2020 and 2022, and young voters are motivated by different things. Economic issues are top of mind, housing is a major concern— and the gap between young men's and young women's political preferences is pronounced… [A]t this moment, I am confident President Biden has a solid lead... For a Democrat to comfortably win the Electoral College, he or she needs to win 60 percent of the youth vote. Biden and Obama, ’12 and ’20, won 60 percent. Obama got 66 percent in ’08. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton got 55 percent. Biden is in the mid-50s. Can you improve that to get to 60 percent? It’s within reach.”
Genocide and other Israeli war crimes are in that mix… just as it is for Gomez and de León, who can’t even do anything substantive about it. Biden can— and if he wants a second term, he must. This is one of the only problems that young Americans care about that Biden can't blame on Trump.