President Joe Biden, back from his trip to Israel, will appeal to Americans to continue funding its ally in the country’s war against Hamas in a primetime speech on Thursday night.
He does so as there are divisions within his own party on how the US is dealing with the conflict.
But while a few of his Democratic colleagues in Congress may not agree with Biden on Israel, most voters overall and Democratic voters do. It’s one of his strongest issues among voters. The same can be said of his policy on Russia’s war on Ukraine, which is another subject of Thursday night’s speech.
Take a look at polling released by Quinnipiac University on Tuesday. A number of the questions asked in the survey on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are illuminating (keeping in mind, of course, that events can shift opinions).
Just 13% of registered voters answered that their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians than the Israelis based on what they know about the Middle East.
Sixty-one percent said their sympathies lie with Israel, which was the highest amount of support Israel had received on this question since Quinnipiac first started asking it in 2001. It’s up considerably from 41% back in 2021, when Quinnipiac last posed the question to voters when Israel was in armed conflict with Hamas. A Fox News poll taken just after Hamas’ attack on Israel last week also showed that voters’ sympathy for Israel had climbed since 2021.
Notably, much of this shift from 2021 is being driven by Democrats. Democratic support for Israel compared to Palestinians has been declining for over a decade.
In Quinnipiac’s latest poll, 48% of Democratic voters say their sympathies are more with Israelis compared to 22% who said Palestinians. That’s a massive change from the 46% for Palestinians and 23% for Israelis in May 2021. Fox’s poll, likewise, has shown support for Israel up by 17 points among Democrats compared to 2021.
When it comes to America’s role as a strong ally of Israel in this conflict, more than half of Democrats polled by Quinnipiac appear to be more likely to side with Biden when it comes to support for Israel. Although 28% of Democratic voters believe America has been too supportive of Israel, 60% say America’s support has been about right.
A majority of voters (52%) concur that America has it right when it comes to support for Israel. The rest are split evenly between saying America is too supportive (20%) and not supportive enough (20%).
Indeed, the issue of support for Israel is one of Biden’s strongest. More voters, polled by Quinnipiac, approve of Biden’s response to Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel (42%) and his policy towards Israel overall (42%) than disapprove (37% and 39% respectively).
These +5 percentage point and +3 percentage point net approval ratings are significantly higher than his overall net approval rating (which is -18 percentage points).
Another issue on which Biden does relatively well is what the US is doing to support Ukraine after Russia invaded the country – the other major topic of his speech on Thursday night. The Quinnipiac poll shows 47% of voters approve of Biden’s response to the invasion, while 45% disapprove.
And as held with Israel (76%), most voters agree with Biden that supporting Ukraine (65%) is in America’s national interest.
This may be one of the reasons why Biden felt comfortable with the US providing Ukraine with long-range missiles in recent days, according to multiple US officials. Those missiles will reportedly allow Ukraine to hit Russian targets that had been out of reach.
This positive polling for Biden on Ukraine hides some divisions, however. While Democrats are more likely to say that backing Ukraine is in America’s national interest (87%) than they are for Israel (76%), Republicans are the opposite (84% on Israel and 49% on Ukraine).
Republicans’ skepticism about backing Ukraine lines up with other polling questions. The clear majority of Republicans (61%) say we’ve done too much for Ukraine, which is up from 7% at the beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Still, it would be a mistake to say it’s just Republicans who are causing Biden a polling headache on Ukraine. Even as Americans support Ukraine, the appetite for Congress approving more aid for the country in its war efforts is lackluster.
A CNN/SSRS poll from August found that 55% of voters overall were opposed to it, including 71% of Republicans. Many Republicans in the US House have been wavering on giving more funding to Ukraine.
Biden’s job is to try and get some of those Republicans who support Ukraine’s efforts on board with funding.
Whether Biden will be able to do so is unclear. He’ll have an easier time on Israel, where a majority of Democrats (59%), independents (61%) and Republicans (79%) approve of America giving weapons and military equipment to the country in response to Hamas’ attack.
All that said, Biden is speaking to his strengths on Thursday night when discussing either Israel or Ukraine. He’s much better off politically talking about these issues than pretty much anything else.
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