Democratic voters have turned against Israel. Why won’t their leaders?

Since former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election, the Democratic Party has been in a panic over how it can win back more voters. Ideas have so far included Democratic officials going on podcasts, finding their own Joe Rogan, and growing facial hair.

But when it comes to actual issues Democratic voters care about, the party doesn’t seem so eager to experiment. And there’s one topic in particular that is showing just how big the divide is between the Democratic establishment and Democratic-leaning voters: the United States’ support for Israel.

Israel’s destruction of Gaza — which many scholars and experts consider to be an ongoing genocide — has prompted a dramatic shift in how Americans view Israel and its relationship with the US. That change is especially pronounced among Democratic voters. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that only 12 percent of Democratic voters say they sympathize more with Israelis, while 60 percent say they are more sympathetic toward Palestinians.

Compare that to just eight years ago, when Quinnipiac asked voters the same question. In 2017, 42 percent of Democratic respondents said they sympathized more with Israelis, while only 23 percent sided more with the Palestinians.

“All of a sudden, it’s the pro-Palestinian position that actually reigns supreme in Democratic politics, not the Israeli position,” Harry Enten, CNN’s chief data analyst, said in a recent broadcast breaking down why Zohran Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel, performed so well in the New York City mayoral primaries. “I rarely ever see shifts like this.”

Over the last week, news and images of more and more Palestinian children dying of hunger have finally compelled American politicians to push back on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. A growing number of Democrats have called out Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war in recent days because of just how dire the situation has become, though Israel has been weaponizing humanitarian aid since the start of its war. It seems that nearly two years into Israel’s assault on Gaza, more and more Democrats are starting to shift their tone.

But by and large, the Democratic establishment has remained out of step with its voters on Israel — because Democrats’ actions and policies tell a far different story than their recent rhetoric does. Democratic leaders in Congress, for example, recently met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has a warrant out for his arrest — issued by the International Criminal Court — for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the crime of starvation as a method of warfare. High-ranking Democratic officials from New York, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have also held out on endorsing Mamdani, despite him being their party’s nominee for New York City mayor. One issue that they keep citing is how Mamdani talks about Israel, presumably out of fear of alienating some of their own voters.

If Democrats really wanted to act on their criticisms of Netanyahu’s government, they could have, over the past two years, tried to suspend military aid to Israel — including defensive weapons — until it complies with international law. But when members of Congress made those kinds of proposals — like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s resolution to withhold billions in military aid to Israel — they consistently failed to gain any real traction within the Democratic Party, let alone on the Republican side of the aisle.

Instead, under the Biden administration, congressional Democrats helped approve over $17 billion in military aid to Israel, even after Israel stood accused of committing genocide in front of the International Court of Justice. And earlier this month, only four House Democrats voted in favor of an amendment in the defense budget bill that would have stripped Israel of $500 million in military aid. Even some of the party’s progressive leaders, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), voted against the amendment, arguing that the aid was for defensive, not offensive, weapons.

Given how far Democratic voters have moved on support for Israel — a more than 60-point swing in the last decade — why has their party’s establishment been so slow to respond?

Even before the war in Gaza, public opinion in the US, especially among Democrats, was already shifting on Israel. Gallup polls have shown the same trend as the Quinnipiac polls. In 2013, only 19 percent of Democratic voters sympathized more with Palestinians than with Israelis. By 2022 — a year before Hamas’s October 7 attacks — that number had doubled to 38 percent. Israel’s destruction of Gaza has only accelerated the shift, and by 2025, 59 percent of Democratic voters sympathized more with Palestinians, while only 21 percent sympathized more with Israelis.

That sea-change is not just limited to Democrats. In 2013, 63 percent of independents sympathized more with Israelis, while only 11 percent said they were more sympathetic toward Palestinians, according to Gallup. By 2025, those numbers were 42 percent and 34 percent, respectively — marking a 44-point swing. Republican voters, on the other hand, have remained relatively steady and staunchly pro-Israel.

So what accounts for the Democratic reticence to shift on Israel? One major factor is the Israel lobby. Political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have argued that the strength of this lobby — and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in particular — is largely responsible for the strong US-Israel relationship.

In a 2006 article for the London Review of Books, which they later spun into a book, they wrote, “The thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby.’ Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country — in this case, Israel — are essentially identical.”

While others have pushed back on that claim, it’s hard to argue that AIPAC — a hard-line pro-Israel group that has lobbied both political parties for decades, helping organize donors’ campaign contributions to pro-Israel candidates — does not have a major role in US politics and foreign policy.

Though it’s impossible to put a precise figure on AIPAC’s economic impact — in part because its operations also help its donor network and other pro-Israel PACs know where to direct their resources — it’s one of the best-funded and most powerful organizations in American politics. Even among lobbying groups, its influence is astounding, especially given how relatively niche their cause is. In the 2024 cycle, AIPAC, which reportedly boasted a $100 million war chest to target progressive candidates, was among the biggest election spenders. (AIPAC has often been insulated from the kind of criticism other major lobbying groups get because people who point out AIPAC’s outsize role in elections tend to get accused of engaging in antisemitic tropes.)

“Members of both parties worried about crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful bipartisan lobbying organization dedicated to ensuring unwavering U.S. support for Israel,” former President Barack Obama wrote in his memoir, A Promised Land. “Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as ‘anti-Israel’ (and possibly anti-Semitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.”

AIPAC is just one part of a whole lobbying ecosystem that includes other pro-Israel groups, think tanks, and wealthy individuals who try to influence US policy to support Israel. This is a reflection of the way money in politics works in general: that deep-pocketed donors have way more sway over party leaders than average voters. That’s why wealthy individuals and corporations, for example, keep avoiding significant tax hikes despite the fact that higher taxes on millionaires are extremely popular among Americans.

AIPAC seems keenly aware that Democratic voters’ views on Israel are shifting fast, so much so that it has become even more aggressive in recent election cycles. In 2024, the group targeted Democratic members of Congress critical of Israel, spending millions to help unseat them. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri both lost their primaries to challengers backed by AIPAC. And as a result of AIPAC’s spending, those two races became the most expensive House primaries in US history. (Notably, AIPAC funneled its money on those races through its new super PAC, the vaguely named “United Democracy Project,” which is perhaps a sign that even AIPAC is aware of how toxic its brand has become in Democratic politics.) The millions of dollars AIPAC poured into these primaries were a desperate attempt — amid the quickly changing politics around Israel — to send Democrats a warning: Criticize Israel and you’ll still face a well-funded opponent.

Of course, AIPAC’s influence has its limits. Despite spending record amounts of money to unseat Bowman and Bush, other representatives who have drawn AIPAC’s ire — including Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Summer Lee — won reelection comfortably. In some cases, AIPAC didn’t even bother trying, knowing the incumbents were too strong.

That doesn’t mean that AIPAC is going away. The group remains a top donor to some major Democratic figures, including Gillibrand and Jeffries. And even Democrats who reject money from pro-Israel groups can still feel boxed in by the Israel lobby. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, specifically turned AIPAC down when they approached her after she won her first primary in 2018. But it’s clear why even she is wary of being too outspoken against Israel. Take, for example, her vote for an amendment that would have stripped Israel of military aid. If she has any ambitions for statewide office, it’s not difficult to imagine the attack ads against her, calling her out — potentially calling her antisemitic — for voting to strip Israel of money for defensive weapons. And it’s easy to see why that prospect would spook her, especially given that her state is home to the largest Jewish population in the US.

Another obstacle to Democrats shifting on Israel is that groups like the Anti-Defamation League have conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism, making it all the more toxic for politicians to talk more openly about Israel’s abysmal human rights record, let alone in support of Palestinian liberation.

There’s also a longstanding bias against Palestinians in American politics and culture. Politicians can get away with repeating Israeli talking points that dehumanize Palestinians, including by (as mentioned above) conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism or decrying symbols like the keffiyeh as hateful, without getting as much pushback as they would if they were talking about other ethnic groups. As a result, anti-Palestinian racism is seldom called out as its own form of discrimination and often flies under the radar. That makes it easier to defend Israel because Palestinians are too often treated as an afterthought in US politics, not people who face life or death consequences as a direct result of US policy.

Finally, there’s the problem of political inertia. Many establishment politicians who have been around for some time are accustomed to a different political era when support for Israel was unshakeable. They are also part of an older generation whose views on Israel are vastly different from younger Americans. The stark generational divide is even evident among Jewish voters: A recent poll in the New York City mayor’s race showed that 67 percent of Jewish voters under the age of 45 support Mamdani, while only 25 percent of Jewish voters over 45 do.

That all helps explain why so many establishment Democrats — used to a kind of politics where Israel enjoyed broad support from voters in both parties — might be reluctant to embrace the new political reality.

But at some point, if Democrats truly want to improve their standing among the public — especially now that their approval ratings have record lows — it might be wise to start actually listening to their voters.

The Democratic Party has many hardline pro-Israel officials, some of whom have gone to great lengths to defend Israel’s indefensible actions in Gaza. In 2023, some Democrats even joined their Republican colleagues in censuring Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in the House, over her criticisms of Israel. And while Democrats have had an easier time condemning obvious targets, like Netanyahu’s right-wing government or settler violence, they still have trouble criticizing Israel’s routine international law violations more broadly.

However, there are signs that Democrats could start changing their posture. In recent years, more and more Democratic members of Congress have become loud critics of Israel and its occupation of Palestine. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is not exactly a firebrand leftist, has been consistently critical of Israel’s war and has even called out the Biden administration’s involvement.

These voices are a minority, but they show there is a potential opening for change. The fracture within the party could mean that the Biden administration’s record on Gaza will be a topic of fierce debate in the 2028 Democratic primaries, given how Biden enabled one of the bloodiest military assaults this century — one that many Democratic voters, especially young people, view as a genocide. And that could further embolden progressive-leaning Democrats to be more outspoken about their opposition to Israel.

As Mamdani’s race in New York City showed last month, that might catch some of the more old-school, establishment Democrats by surprise, since being pro-Palestinian is no longer the third rail in American politics that it was long thought to be.

After all, if Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel, was able to win the Democratic nomination for mayor of the city with the largest Jewish voting bloc in the country, then that kind of politics could have success elsewhere, no matter how hard lobbying groups try to stop it.