Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Poll: Nearly three quarters of young voters oppose Biden’s Gaza policy

A new poll found that nearly three quarters of voters aged 18-29 oppose the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.
U.S PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN MEETING WITH ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU ON OCTOBER 18, 2023. (PHOTO: HAIM ZAH, GPO)

U.S. voters broadly disapprove of President Biden’s Gaza policy, according to a new poll. Young Americans are particularly critical, with nearly three quarters of those aged 18-29 saying they oppose the administration’s approach.

The data comes from a recent New York Times/Siena poll, which found that 33% of voters approve of Biden’s policy, while 57% disapprove. Roughly a third of those polled said Biden too supportive of Israel and slightly less than a third said it was too supportive of Palestinians. 39% said the current level of support for both sides was “about right.”

44% of Americans, including 59% of Democrats, support a ceasefire. 49% of Democrats say Israel is not seriously interested in a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The poll also indicates that young people’s opposition to Israeli policy transcends the current president. 46% of those aged 18-29 said they sympathize with the Palestinians, while just 27% said they sympathize with the Israelis.

This is yet another survey depicting a massive generation gap on the issue, as support for Israel grows with the age of those polled. Just 11% of voters over the age of 65 sympathize with the Palestinians, while 63% of them sympathize with the Israelis.

“I’d like him to show some compassion for the Palestinian families and the Israeli families that are receiving the main blow of it all in Gaza,” Temple University student Lyndsey Griswold told the New York Times. “This country has plenty of money to send to the civilians who are being actively harmed by this conflict.”

NYT political analyst Nate Cohn contextualizes some of the data in his newsletter and it explains why it’s another bad sign for Biden’s reelection chances.

“Overall, Mr. Trump is winning 21 percent of young Biden ’20 voters who sympathize more with Palestinians than Israel, while winning 12 percent of other young Biden ’20 voters,” writes Cohn. “In an even more striking sign of defections among his own supporters, Mr. Biden holds just a 64-24 lead among the young Biden ’20 voters who say Israel is intentionally killing civilians, compared with an 84-8 lead among the Biden ’20 voters who don’t think Israel is intentionally killing civilians.”

“It’s possible that the kinds of young voters opposed to Israel already opposed Mr. Biden back before the war,” he continues. “That can’t be ruled out. But it’s still evidence that opposition to the war itself is probably contributing to Mr. Biden’s unusual weakness among young voters.”

The Siena survey was released shortly after a Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) poll that half of U.S. voters aged 18 to 24 support Hamas over Israel. The findings of that study were immediately denounced by right-wing outlets and politicians. “These individuals siding with evil over democracy should be a wake-up call,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told The New York Post. “Ideological rot among young Americans, driven by woke values and victim culture, has gotten so bad they’ve convinced themselves to sympathize with actual terrorists who hate America.”

Majority of registered voters disapprove of Biden's handling of Israel-Palestinian conflict: Poll

The poll showed that 57% of voters were dissatisfied with Biden's approach to the war, while and 33% supported it.

Anew poll shows a majority of registered voters disapprove of President Joe Biden's handling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The New York Times-Siena College poll published Tuesday found 57% of those surveyed disapprove, while 33% approve.

The polls also found 46% of respondents trust 2024 GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump would "do a better job," compared to 38% for Biden. 

The conflict started when the Palestinian-affiliated militant group Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which resulted in Israel declaring war on Hamas. 

Younger Democrats appear to be more pro-Palestinian that pro-Israel.

In addition, there has been a more general concern about the number of civilian casualties in the war and a push to get hostages in Gaza, where the fighting is occurring, to safety.

Critics of the Biden administration's foreign policy on the matter say the president could do more publicly to get the Israel government to limit casualties, or risk losing international support.

Last week, Biden administration staffers called for a ceasefire in Gaza during a vigil outside of the White House.

The poll surveyed 1,016 registered voters from Dec. 10-14. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.5%.


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