Poll finds wide disapproval of Biden on Gaza, and little room to shift gears

WASHINGTON - Voters broadly disapprove of the way US President Joe Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Hamas, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found.

Younger Americans are far more critical than older voters of both Israel’s conduct and of the administration’s response to the war in the Gaza Strip.

Voters are also sending mixed signals about the direction that US policymaking should take as the Israel-Hamas war grinds into its third month.

Nearly as many Americans want Israel to continue its military campaign as want it to stop now to avoid further civilian casualties.

That split appears to leave the president with few politically palatable options.

The findings of the Times/Siena poll hold portents not only for Mr Biden as he enters the 2024 re-election year but also for long-term relations between Israel and its most powerful benefactor, the United States.

The fractured views on the conflict among traditionally Democratic voter groups show the continued difficulty Mr Biden faces of holding together the coalition he built in 2020.

It is a challenge that is likely to persist even as economic indicators grow more positive and legal troubles swirl around his expected opponent, former president Donald Trump.

Overall, registered voters say they favour Trump over Mr Biden in 2024’s presidential election by 2 percentage points, 46 per cent to 44 per cent.

The president’s job approval rating has slid to 37 per cent, down 2 percentage points from July.

But there is considerable uncertainty over whether disaffected voters will even vote.

While it is still early, the race is flipped among the likely electorate, with Mr Biden leading by 2 percentage points.

Economic concerns remain paramount, with 34 per cent of registered voters listing economic- or inflation-related concerns as the top issue facing the country.

That is down from 45 per cent in October 2022, but still high.

The survey said 57 per cent of respondents disapproved of Biden’s handling of the Israeli-Hamas conflict, against 33 per cent who approved.

In addition, 46 per cent of those surveyed said they would trust Trump to handle the situation more than Mr Biden, while 38 per cent would trust the president more.

Voters between the ages of 18 and 29, traditionally a heavily Democratic demographic, jump out. Nearly three-quarters of them disapprove of the way Mr Biden is handling the conflict in Gaza.

And among registered voters, they say they would vote for Trump by 49 per cent to 43 per cent. In July, those young voters backed Mr Biden by 10 percentage points.

“I don’t want to vote for someone who is not aligned with my own personal values, as Biden has shown he is not when it comes to Gaza,” said Mr Colin Lohner, a 27-year-old software engineer in San Francisco. But, he asked, “Do I vote for Biden or do I not vote at all? That’s really difficult, because if I don’t vote for Biden, I open up the possibility that Trump will win, and I really do not want that.”

The electorate appears to be of two minds on what should come next, a cease-fire or a continuing campaign against Hamas, whose

attack on Oct 7 killed around 1,200 Israelis and set off the conflagration

.

Given a choice between two courses of action, 44 per cent of those surveyed said Israel should stop its military campaign to protect against civilian casualties, already totalling nearly 20,000 people killed, according to health authorities in Gaza.

A similar proportion, 39 per cent, advised the opposite course: Israel should continue its military campaign even if it means that civilian casualties in Gaza mount.

Most young voters, however, responded to question after question with answers showing that they see the worst in Israel.

Few of them believe Israelis are serious about peace with the Palestinians.

Nearly half say Israel is intentionally killing civilians. Nearly three-fourths say Israel is not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties. And a majority opposes additional economic and military aid to Israel.

The broader electorate, by contrast, takes a much more pro-Israel view, suggesting that the country’s image problems with American voters are more acute on the political horizon than at present.

Still, fully 48 per cent of all voters surveyed said they believed Israel was not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.

Those who identify as regular users of TikTok were the most adamant in their criticism.

The social media platform, which is owned by a Chinese company, has come under heated criticism from both parties, but especially from Republicans, for an inflammatory stream of videos aimed at users who skew very young.

Even when controlling for their age, TikTok users were more critical of the Biden administration’s policies towards Israel.

The war also appears to be advancing the process of turning Israel into a partisan issue.

For years, Republicans, led by Trump, have accused Democrats of undermining Israel’s government and have implored Jewish voters to leave the party that nearly three-quarters of them traditionally have called their political home.

Now, a partisan divide is emerging that could affect some Jewish voters’ comfort within the Democratic Party: 61 per cent of Democrats say the Israel-Hamas war should end, almost the exact same percentage of Republicans who say Israel should continue its campaign until the hostages are released.

Among Republicans, 60 per cent want the war to continue, even if it means more Palestinian civilians killed; just 22 per cent of Democrats said so.

Of white, evangelical Christians, whose theological emphasis on Israel is at the core of the GOP’s unquestioning support, 80 per cent said they sympathised with Israel over the Palestinians, even more than the 76 per cent of Republicans who say that. Democrats show no such consensus: 31 per cent said they sympathised more with Israel, 34 per cent with the Palestinians and 16 per cent said their sympathies lay with both.

Those divisions could alienate Jewish voters who overwhelmingly chose Mr Biden in 2020 and are anxiously watching a rise of antisemitism that has accompanied anger at Israel’s war effort.

Mr Cory Lebson, a 50-year-old Jewish Democrat in Silver Spring, Maryland, said antisemitism “feels like the worst that I can remember in my 50 years. It’s more salient, it’s more visible”.

But he had high praise for the president. “I think he has been very good at balancing both from the left and the right and coming up with a nuanced response,” Mr Lebson said, adding, “Biden historically, for his entire political career, has always been supportive of the Jewish community and very against antisemitism.”

Older voters were far more sympathetic to Mr Biden’s efforts – and to Israel’s war efforts – than younger voters, a clear political dilemma as the president tries to steer an intractable and deadly conflict and pursues a re-election campaign.

Of registered voters 65 years and older, 52 per cent approve of Biden’s actions on Israel, 12 percentage points more than those who disapprove. And older Americans reliably vote.

“The armchair quarterbacking in this situation, what do they expect?” asked Ms Christine Johnson, 69, a retired computer consultant in Oak Park, Illinois, who plans to vote for Mr Biden. “What would they do? My feelings are I approve. I think he’s doing the best that can be done.”

It is unclear how much the criticism of Mr Biden will translate into votes for Trump, or anyone else, given the admitted disaffection of young voters sympathetic with the Palestinians.

Voters younger than 45 who say they disapprove of the president’s policies on Gaza are also more likely than young voters who approve of his policies to concede that they did not vote in 2020. Such youthful critics are picking Trump over Mr Biden, by 16 percentage points, but they may not vote.

The young voters who disapprove of Mr Biden’s Israel-Gaza policies but still say they will vote for him are also a little more likely to say they are certain to vote than young critics who side with the ex-president.

And many are torn. Mr Evan Crochet, a 30-year-old video producer in Cary, North Carolina, who supported Senator Bernie Sanders, a left-wing independent, in 2016, said he saw Mr Biden and Trump as “two sides of the same coin”.

“I don’t trust Biden on Israel; I don’t trust Trump on Israel,” he said. NYTIMES