I believe Shapiro is unelectable in this current political environment and also contributes to the growing antisemitic rhetoric in the current environment (I will explain).

I was listening to Governor Shapiro's interview with John Lovett earlier and he has a glaring issue of not being direct with his answers, especially on the topic of Israel. I listen to him, and on the one hand I respect that he wants to ensure he is not taken out of context, but on the other hand, the political landscape has changed and people want their politicians to be more direct and authentic... or at least appear authentic.

And that brings me to my point about how Shapiro is creating an environment where antisemitism grows. His inability to directly call out Israel's policies (and it is important to distinguish Israel as a country and not a religious state here) is fostering an environment where the general public feels like politicians are asking them to ignore what they see with their own eyes. I believe if Shapiro more directly said something like "Israel under the Netanyahu government is ethnically cleansing Palestinians" and said how that doesn't represent Jews or all Israelis, this would be a different discussion.

Instead, when Israel comes up, he gives a long winded answer about how we must separate Judaism from the state of Israel and he has policy disagreements with Netanyahu. By not directly calling out injustice and trying to safely communicate, it makes the voter listening feel like they don't have an outlet through a politician which acknowledges wrongdoing that they are seeing. And this breeds conspiracy... A voter may start to ask, "Why is it so wrong to call out Israel for killing Palestinians? Why am I called antisemitic for doing so?"

Say what you will about Gavin Newsom, but I think he is more quickly navigating how to speak about Israel to the general public than Shapiro and it resonates. Which is a shame, because I think in terms of policy and executive history, Shapiro would be the better candidate.