Progressive state legislator Chris Rabb won the Democratic nomination this week for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, a seat now held by the retiring Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.).
One of the issues that differentiated Rabb from his two chief competitors, state legislator Sharif Street and physician Ala Stanford, was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An April 30 Philadelphia Inquirer article went so far as to say that “the word ‘genocide’ became the defining issue of the Philly congressional race.”
The article detailed multiple episodes about the issue, including a candidate forum that turned contentious when Rabb used the term “genocide” despite the host’s instructions to avoid the conflict. Stanford later found herself defending her refusal to use the word, and getting heckled by audience members while doing so. Meanwhile, an important local issue – the closure of 17 Philadelphia public schools – went all but unmentioned during the forum.
Local vs. global issues in 2026
How could a conflict on the far side of the globe animate a race for Congress more powerfully than a tangible local issue? One possibility is that Democratic voters – or perhaps the Democratic activists overrepresented in the primary electorate – have more intense preferences about Israel/Palestine than local issues.
I recently completed a survey that can shed light on these questions. From Feb. 25 to March 17, 2026, I worked with the survey firm YouGov to survey 830 Americans and an additional 830 political activists (people who had engaged in politics through activities such as volunteering, donations, or by being paid staff or elected officials themselves). To be sure, this survey canvassed adults nationwide, but it can help us understand how widespread Democrats’ emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be.
I used an experimental survey design to estimate how much 30 different issue positions can move voters. These issues cover a broad range of contemporary concerns, from AI and Medicaid to trans high school athletes and income taxes. Making “an official statement condemning Israel” was one of the 15 left-of-center positions in the survey options. The survey asked voters to choose among pairs of hypothetical candidates who had a randomly selected set of positions. This design allows me to figure out which candidate positions were most attractive to Democratic voters and also to Democratic activists.
How attractive was the position of condemning Israel?
Not very, it turns out. The survey results show that candidates who took this position won only 43.5% of the pairings among Democrats. That position actually loses votes relative to liberal positions on 14 other issues. The same thing is true even among Democratic activists. The average vote share for candidates condemning Israel among the activist sample is 42.7%.
Among both Democratic voters and activists, liberal positions to protect same-sex marriage nationwide and create a pathway to citizenship are actually the leading vote-getters. Raising taxes on those making over $150K to fund education and health care was another popular position, as was expanding Medicaid. By contrast, banning vouchers for private schools and protecting the right to burn the American flag proved unpopular, both with Democrats overall and Democratic activists.
Democratic voters and activists in this survey diverged on relatively few issues. Taxing fossil fuels to prevent climate change wins more votes among Democratic voters overall than Democratic activists. Meanwhile, Democratic activists back candidates who support Medicaid expansion at a higher rate than Democrats overall. But those differences are minor. Democrats and Democratic activists broadly agree on which positions to prioritize.
In short, the issues that grab headlines in PA-3 or other primary races this year may not be what the party’s voters or activists care about, but rather those where there’s daylight between the candidates. That, in turn, fosters misperceptions about what voters and especially activists prioritize – and the false impression that Democratic activists emphasize different issues than other Democrats.
In actuality, Democrats and Democratic activists have similar preferences about what candidates should favor. And condemning Israel isn’t high on that list.
Daniel J. Hopkins is the Julie and Martin Franklin Presidential Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and the author of Stable Condition: Elites’ Limited Influence on Health Care Attitudes (Russell Sage Foundation, 2023) and The Increasingly United States (The University of Chicago Press, 2018).
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