Majority of Israelis prefer Donald Trump over Joe Biden - poll

A new poll published by I24News and conducted by the Direct Falls Research Institute on Monday found that 63.3% of Israelis preferred the reelection of incumbent US President Donald Trump, compared to 18.8% who preferred former vice president and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.Most respondents said they believed Trump would be a better president for Israel, while a minority of Israelis said the same about Biden. In the undecideds camp, 10.4% of respondents said that both candidates would be equally good for Israel, while 3.1% said neither would be.Israelis were also asked whether the personal connection between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could affect US-Israel ties, and some 50.9% of respondents said that the election of Biden would harm future bilateral relations, since they felt that Trump has a special relationship with Israel.Similarly, 43.5% of respondents indicated that the US-Israel relationship was not dependent on the US president or the Israeli prime minister, because the US is a “true friend” of Israel, regardless.As for public interest, 87.8% of Israelis said they were following the US election race, and, broken down, 48.1% said it was very interesting for them, while 39.7% said it was interesting to a certain extent, and 9% said that they were not very interested.Israeli perspectives on American Jewry’s voting patterns were also assessed in the poll, and 48.2% of respondents thought that American Jews’ support for the Democrats is “wrong,” compared to 35.5% of Israelis who thought American-Jewish support for them is “right,” while 16.3% of respondents said they were unsure.Regarding ties between American and Israeli Jews, 47% of the latter said there is a rift between the world’s two largest Jewish communities, but expressed optimism about possible reconciliation. Conversely, 35.3% of respondents said there is no rupture between the two communities, but that there are legitimate points of disagreement; 12.4% of respondents said there cannot be any reconciliation between the two communities, and 5.3% were unsure of the question.The poll was conducted on October 6 with a sample of 519 adult respondents from all sectors of the Israeli population. The statistical sampling error was + 4.4%, with a probability of 95%.