United States President Joe Biden has quickly lost popularity amid the Israel-Hamas war, reaching the lowest levels since he took the presidency, according to an NBC News poll. Its findings are similar to those of a Gallup poll a month ago.
Biden’s popularity of only 40% now falls behind that of former President Donald Trump’s, the poll found. NBC attributes the drop in popularity to Biden’s unpopular decisions on the Israel-Hamas war.
Most of the disapproval has been sourced to Democratic voters, of whom 70% said that they disagreed with Biden’s handling of the war.
What are the voters saying?
“I do not support his support of Israel,” Meg Furey, 40, a Democrat from Texas told the outlet.
“Failed promises, student loans, foreign policy in general,” added 23-year-old Zico Schell.
As referenced by both Furey and Schell, Biden’s foreign policy has been a source of disapproval for many voters. Only 33% stated they agreed with Biden’s handling of foreign policy issues, a drop of 8%.
The greatest shift in approval came from the 18-34 age group. In September, their support stood at 46%, but has now fallen to only 31%. Correspondingly, a YouGov poll found this age group to have the greatest support of Hamas, with only 50% of 18-29 year olds believing that Hamas is a terrorist organization.
More than half (56%) of voters said they disagreed with the handling of the Israel-Hamas war and only 49% of Democrat voters disapproved. Republican voters (69%) and independent voters (59%) also expressed their disapproval.