What Americans think of Trump's support for Israel

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our occasional polling column.

Sympathies for Gazans have increased since the war began

In the 2024 election, President Donald Trump cashed in on some Democrats’ ire over U.S. support for Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas, now in its 16th month. Even though Trump had a history in his first term of championing Israel’s interests in the region, a contingent of pro-Palestinian voters withheld support for former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris over their support for Israel, and many may have decided to stay home or even vote for Trump.

Those voters may not be too happy with Trump now, though. On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump promised to back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even more strongly than Biden had, while Jared Kushner, Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, speculated that the Gazan waterfront might be valuable real estate. Now, Trump has made good on some of his campaign rhetoric by doubling down on support for Israel. Netanyahu was one of Trump’s first foreign head of state visitors, and during their meeting, Trump floated a U.S. takeover of the Gaza Strip and forced relocation of all Palestinians, a stance he has since repeated, while referring to Gaza as a “demolition site” or “big real estate site.”

Trump’s idea for a U.S. takeover has been praised by Netanyahu but condemned by experts as a human rights violation. And recent polling suggests that the idea is widely unpopular and may raise concern among Americans about the direction of Trump’s foreign policy.

Polls suggest that a plurality of Americans still support Israel in the conflict with Hamas, as they have throughout the war: A Fox News poll from Jan. 10-13 found that 54 percent of registered voters sided more with the Israelis than the Palestinians, while 32 percent sided with the Palestinians. Another late January poll from Echelon Insights found that 43 percent sided with Israel in the conflict, while 18 percent sided with the Palestinians and 39 percent were unsure.

However, an increasing share of Americans over the course of the war have thought Israel’s response to the October 2023 terrorist attacks were too harsh, while American sympathy for Palestinians has grown. In fact, Americans are more sympathetic to the Palestinians now than they have been at any point since 2017, according to a YouGov/The Economist poll from Feb. 9-11. In that survey, 21 percent said they sympathized more with the Palestinians over the Israelis in the conflict. While that’s still fewer than those who sympathized more with the Israelis (31 percent), it represents a continued shift in opinion since the start of the conflict. In comparison, only 8 percent of Americans sided with the Palestinians when the pollster first asked the question in December 2017, and only 15 percent did just before Trump’s inauguration in late January.

Much of that change was driven by Democrats, 35 percent of whom sympathized with the Palestinians in the latest poll, compared to 27 percent in the late January survey. Indeed, 60 percent of Republicans in the latest survey said they sympathized more with Israelis — about the same share as in January. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans also said Trump’s support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas war has been “about right,” signalling they approve of his approach so far. In comparison, 12 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independents said the same — with larger shares saying Trump has been “too supportive of Israel.”

Despite their slightly warmer opinions toward Palestinians, many Americans still blame Hamas for the civilian casualties in the strip: A plurality, 44 percent, blamed Hamas, while 24 percent blamed Israel in the Echelon poll. (The rest were unsure.)

As for what policies Americans want to see, the YouGov/The Economist survey found that a plurality, 35 percent, supported decreasing military aid to Israel, while 27 percent supported maintaining the same amount of aid and only 15 percent supported increasing aid (a new low since the start of the conflict). And Americans are fairly united in disagreeing with Trump that the U.S. should take over Gaza. In a YouGov poll from Feb. 4-6, 54 percent of American adults opposed the U.S. taking control of Gaza, while 24 percent said they would support the move (only 7 percent if it involved using military force). A Data for Progress poll from Feb. 8-9 found that 62 percent of likely voters opposed the idea and 23 percent supported it.

Overall, Americans may be worried about global stability under Trump. Fifty-two percent of registered voters in a Quinnipiac University poll from Jan. 26 said they were skeptical that the peace deal Israel and Hamas are negotiating will hold. And in a YouGov/CBS News poll from Feb. 5-7, 45 percent of Americans thought Trump’s policies would decrease peace and stability in the world, while 40 percent thought he would increase it and the rest thought he would have no effect either way.

— Monica Potts

Americans don’t want the U.S. acquiring any new territory

Of course, Gaza isn’t the only foreign territory that Trump has expressed interest in acquiring. He’s also said the U.S. should take over Greenland, the Panama Canal and the entire country of Canada. Each of these is unpopular with the American people too, according to polls from RMG Research/Napolitan News Service, Data for Progress and YouGov.

Americans are actually fairly divided on retaking control of the Panama Canal; on average, they opposed it 43 percent to 41 percent. But they’re more staunchly against acquiring Greenland (46 percent to 34 percent), and they especially oppose the idea of annexing Canada (57 percent to 30 percent).

In all cases, Republicans are the group most in favor of adding new territory: On average, 67 percent of Republicans want the U.S. to take ownership of the Panama Canal, 54 percent want to acquire Greenland and 45 percent want to annex Canada. This might be surprising since the share of Republicans who think it is best for the U.S. to take an “active role” in world affairs has dropped recently, from 69 percent in 2019 to 54 percent in 2024. But perhaps with Trump back in the White House, Republicans are once again eager to see the U.S. dominate the world stage.

— Nathaniel Rakich

Americans still support Ukraine in its war with Russia

The war between Israel and Hamas is not the only foreign conflict Trump inherited from Biden. Trump has promised to promptly end the three-year-old war between Russia and Ukraine. But his approach to doing so has alarmed many U.S. allies, as his administration recently opened up talks with Russia and signalled openness to peace talks that could potentially embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and sideline Ukraine.

That would be a shift not only from U.S. policy under Biden, but from the outcome most Americans say they want: Americans have been sympathetic to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country three years ago. A strong bipartisan majority of Americans, 70 percent, said the U.S. should call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine that “guarantees Ukrainian security,” per an Ipsos poll from Dec. 13-15. Meanwhile, a Morning Consult poll in December found that while a growing number of Americans (as well as Europeans) believe the war could end soon, 47 percent said the U.S. should not push Ukraine into territorial concessions, even if that means lengthening the war.

Of course, there’s always been a limit to what Americans think the U.S. should do to aid Ukraine: Fifty-eight percent in the Ipsos poll said the U.S. can’t afford to take any military action in Ukraine, and polling by Pew Research Center has found that a growing percentage of Americans think we’ve committed too much support to Ukraine as the war dragged on. Unsurprisingly, that split has grown especially along party lines: A plurality of 47 percent of Republicans said the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine while a plurality of 35 percent of Democrats said we weren’t providing enough, in a Pew Research Center survey from Feb. 3-9.

However, the Morning Consult poll suggests that Americans have in fact become more inclined to help Ukraine in some form. In a shift from October 2023, when just 15 percent of respondents in Morning Consult polling thought the U.S. wasn’t doing enough to help Ukraine, 22 percent thought we weren’t spending enough in December.

— Monica Potts

More Americans are disapproving of Trump

According to 538’s presidential approval tracker, as of Feb. 19 at 12 p.m., 49.1 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 45.8 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of +3.3 points). On Jan. 24, the date we first had enough polls to calculate an average approval rating, an average of 49.7 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s job performance and 41.5 percent disapproved (a net approval rating of +8.2 points).

In other words, Trump is getting less popular: Although the share of people who approve of his job performance has remained fairly stable so far, these numbers show that some people are coming off the fence to say they disapprove of him.

That also makes Trump the second-most unpopular president at this point in his term since at least the 1950s. Most new presidents have experienced a honeymoon period that left them considerably more beloved than Trump is during their first month in office. The only president who didn’t experience such a honeymoon was Trump himself, during his first term. On Feb. 19, 2017, Trump’s average approval rating was 43.0 percent, and his average disapproval rating was 49.8 percent (-6.8 points). By contrast, on Feb. 19, 2021, former President Joe Biden’s average approval rating was 54.7 percent, and his disapproval rating was 36.8 percent (+17.9 points).

— Nathaniel Rakich