Republicans' demands in opinion polls

American voters want the war in Gaza to end and believe President Trump should withhold US aid, if necessary, to pressure Israel to do so. During last year's election campaign, Donald Trump promised to make major changes to US Middle East policy. He stated that the Gaza war would not have happened if he were president, promised to end it, boasted about pressuring Israel to accept a ceasefire, and then, as president, proposed evacuating Palestinians from Gaza to make way for a Riviera-like resort. Ahead of the 2024 election, we conducted a poll of American voters and found public support for ending the war and using US aid to Israel as leverage to pressure it to end the occupation of Palestinian territories and end the war in Gaza. Now, more than three months into President Trump's second term, Israel has canceled the ceasefire, resumed its bombing campaign, resumed mass deportations of civilians, and reimposed a food and medicine blockade on the Palestinian population in Gaza. Last week, we re-asked the same questions from the 2024 poll in a new survey. The overall results were largely the same, with one key difference: Three months into his term, support for a tougher stance toward Israel was not limited to Democrats, but also included President Trump's Republican voter base, who wanted him to take a tougher stance to pressure Israel to change its behavior. This was one of the key findings of the poll released on April 30 by the Arab American Institute Foundation. The foundation commissioned John Zogby Strategies to conduct a survey of 1,000 American voters to assess their attitudes toward the Trump administration's policies toward Israel's war on Gaza. What the results show is that voters' opinions did not change much between November 2024 and April 2025. What did change, however, is that Israel is losing favor with Republicans, who now want President Trump to take a stronger stance to rein in its behavior. But this doesn't mean that Republican voters no longer support the president's domestic policies, including allegations of anti-Semitism, campus crackdowns, and the deportation of students participating in pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests. Here are the key findings: The poll shows that voters' sympathy for Israel remains somewhat higher than their sympathy for the Palestinians. But by a clear margin of 46% to 30%, American voters feel that US policy in the Middle East is too biased in favor of Israel, with 39% of Republicans agreeing and 37% disagreeing. This represents a significant shift from 2024, when only 33% of Republicans agreed with this view, compared to 43% who said the policy was not too biased. By a two-to-one margin, American voters agree that President Trump "should put greater pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories and allow the Palestinians to establish their own independent state." While this percentage is consistent with last year's results, the most notable difference this year is the significant increase in the percentage of Republicans who agree that pressure should be applied to Israel. In 2024, 37% of Republicans supported the idea and 40% opposed it, while now it stands at 49% and only 29% oppose it. When asked whether the United States should continue providing unconditional aid to Israel, or restrict such aid if "Israel continues to act in a manner that endangers civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon," this year's results were similar to last year's. Only 23% support unconditional aid, while 53% oppose it. The key takeaway from this preliminary data is that while Americans continue to sympathize with Israel, they oppose its policies and want the president—whether Democrat or Republican—to use U.S. aid as leverage to change Israel's behavior. It is also important to note that a significant percentage of Republican voters, including those who identify as "born-again Christians," want the president they elected to take a firm stance against Israel's policies of bombing civilians and occupying Palestinian territories. What all these results demonstrate is that Republicans, and their evangelical Christian base, are also losing patience with Israel's policies.