Israelis broadly favor Trump over Harris on security and in vote preference: Poll

Israelis broadly pick former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris as better for Israel's security and in turn favor Trump for the U.S. presidency, albeit with sharp political divisions, a national survey by Langer Research Associates and PORI (Public Opinion Research Israel) finds.

Fifty-eight percent of Israelis in the survey, conducted in September, said Trump would be better for Israel's security, vs. 20% for Harris. If they had a vote in the U.S. election, Israelis said they'd pick Trump over Harris by a similar 54%-24%, with the rest taking a pass.

To a large degree, these attitudes follow the fault lines in Israeli politics. Among people who would support parties in the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if an election in Israel were today, 88% picked Trump as better for Israel's security and 84% preferred him for the U.S. presidency -- results that may reflect tensions between Netanyahu's government and the Biden administration.

Supporters of Israeli opposition parties, by contrast, split closely, 39%-37%, Harris-Trump, in preference for the presidency. That said, even opposition party supporters picked Trump over Harris as better for Israel's security, albeit by a comparatively close 41%-32%.

While much attention now is on the conflict with Hezbollah and Iran, another question finds majority Israeli rejection of the suggestion that Israel is doing too little to avoid civilian casualties in the war in Gaza. To the contrary, "considering the challenges of conducting battles in populated areas," 54% said Israel is doing too much to avoid such casualties. Twenty-eight percent said it's doing the right amount; 14%, too little.

The three questions in this study were included in a random-sample, face-to-face survey of 1,012 Israelis, with fieldwork by PORI, Sept. 8-22, before the bulk of Israel's campaign against Hezbollah and Iran's subsequent missile attack this week. (Eighty-two percent of interviews were completed before Sept. 17, when thousands of Hezbollah pagers exploded.)

The U.S. election

In addition to the political gaps in attitudes toward the U.S. presidential candidates, ethnic and religious differences are sharp. Sixty-four percent of Jews picked Trump over Harris as better for Israel's security, while Arabs, who account for about 17% of Israel's adult citizen population, divided essentially evenly, 27%-24%; 36% saw no difference between the two. In vote preference, Jews went for Trump by 58%-23%, while Arabs split 28%-26%; the rest said they wouldn't participate or didn't express a preference.

Gaps also are present within the Jewish population. The shares picking Trump as better on security ranged from 53% of secular Jews to 88% of Orthodox Jews. Patterns are similar in preference for the presidency: Secular Jews favored Trump by 11 points, 46%-35%, widening to 65%-17% among traditional Jews and 69%-3% among ultra-Orthodox Jews, and peaking for Trump at 85%-4% among Orthodox Jews.

U.S. election preferences among Israeli Jews overall are sharply different from those of Jews in the United States. In ABC News/Ipsos polling, combining late August and mid-September surveys for an adequate sample size, U.S. Jews favored Harris over Trump by 63%-33%.

Another difference is by age. In the United States, Harris does best with younger adults. In Israel, it's Trump who does best in this group, with 65% of those younger than 35 picking Trump on security and 58% supporting him for president. These drop to 52% and 48% for Trump, respectively, among Israelis age 65 and older.

Trump also prevails among Israelis in strength of sentiment. Thirty percent overall said they'd "surely" support Trump for president, vs. 10% who said this about Harris; and 37% said Trump would be "much" better for Israel's security, compared with 12% for Harris.

Civilian casualties in Gaza

There also are ethnic, religious and political gaps in views of efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, given the challenges of urban combat. Strikingly, while just 7% of Jews said Israel is doing too little to avoid such casualties, that rises to 50% of Israeli Arabs.

Among Jews, about eight in 10 of those who are Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox said Israel is doing too much to avoid civilian casualties. This falls to 63% of traditional Jews and 47% of secular Jews.

Politically, among those who favor coalition parties, 76% said Israel is doing too much to avoid civilian casualties. This declines to 41% of opposition party supporters, with 21% saying Israel is doing too little; 34%, about the right amount.

About this survey

This survey is a joint project of Langer Research Associates, a New York-based firm that specializes in the design, management and analysis of public opinion research domestically and internationally; and PORI (Public Opinion Research Israel), a leading Israeli public opinion research firm founded in 1966. The study's questions were asked as a part of PORI's September face-to-face omnibus survey.

The survey was conducted in Hebrew and Arabic among 1,012 respondents across Israel via area probability sampling. One hundred primary sampling units were randomly selected, with households selected via random walk and respondents selected via the last-birthday method. Up to three revisits were made at each selected household. In quality control, 20% of each interviewer's work was re-checked randomly by phone.

Data were weighted for probability of selection and calibrated to census data for sex by age and region. Results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 points for the full sample, including a design effect due to weighting of 1.05. As in any survey, error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.