70% of Voters Under 35 Disapprove of Biden's Handling of Israel-Hamas War

Majority of Democrats believe Israel has gone too far in Gaza, NBC poll finds

70% of registered voters ages 18 to 34 disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas, according to a new national poll by NBC News.

With the presidential election just a year away, that’s significant. But other data from the poll that was not included in NBC’s writeup paints a more complex picture — especially as it relates to attitudes about Israel’s last Gaza war in 2014.

While the same poll found a majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has “gone too far” in Gaza, it also found that the majority of voters overall believe Israel’s actions are “justified.” Most interesting, the poll also includes past data about the same questions regarding Israel’s Gaza war in 2014 — called Operation Protective Edge — and the responses are more or less the same.

Whereas 47% of voters believe Israel’s actions today are justified, 44% believed that was the case in 2014. And while 30% believe Israel has gone too far today, 24% believed that in 2014. So both types of responses have increased in similar measure, at the expense of undecideds.

None of this is to say that the 70% disapproval from voters under age 35 isn’t significant — clearly it means something. But it hasn’t much changed the attitudes of registered voters, and that also means something. Activists should be honest about this.

You can take a look at the language of the polling and the results below.