Earlier this month, progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid argued in a column for MSNBC that President Joe Biden was risking his re-election by alienating his Muslim and Arab American supporters with his staunch support of Israel in its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. As interested as I was in the argument, I was skeptical that the aggrieved populations cited were big enough — or truly committed enough to defecting from the Democrats — to significantly threaten Biden’s 2024 odds.
But a new political reality is emerging that suggests that Biden’s problem may be bigger than just disaffected Muslim and Arab Americans. The pollsters who conducted a new NBC News poll connect Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war to his hitting the lowest approval rating of his presidency. The survey found that 51% of Democrats and a plurality of young voters, 42%, believe Israel has gone too far in its military operations. The poll also found that 41% of Democrats disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and that 49% oppose providing military aid to Israel, something Biden has pushed for vociferously.
A growing share of Democrats believe Israel’s response has been too extreme and that the Democratic Party is too supportive of that response.
“This poll is a stunner, and it’s stunning because of the impact the Israel-Hamas war is having on Biden,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted the survey alongside a Democratic pollster.
The findings track with a raft of recent polls that show that as Israel has pursued a policy of collective punishment in Gaza, a growing share of Democrats believe Israel’s response has been too extreme and that the Democratic Party is too supportive of that response. The party is splitting over one of the biggest foreign policy crises of Biden’s presidency.
It’s a significant development. For a long time the Democratic playbook has been to offer mild…
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