US President Joe Biden’s declaration that the United States is withholding arms to Israel for a possible military operation in Rafah may be too little, too late for its intended audience — key Democratic constituencies opposed to the war.

Timing is everything, and this split among Democrats comes just six months before the US presidential election in November.

Biden trails former president Donald Trump in most national polls and in all battleground states, according to the latest aggregate polling from Real Clear Politics.

Trump leads by a hair, or within a margin of error, in most of these battleground polls. Although the war is not a priority for the overwhelming majority of voters, Biden is counting on turnout of college students and progressives, as well as of Arab and Muslim Americans in the party to whom the war matters most, to help close the gap in these tightly contested battleground states.