Almost three-fourths of U.S. voters say antisemitism is a serious problem, according to a poll released on Wednesday.
In the Quinnipiac University survey, 73% of voters described prejudice against Jews as a very serious or somewhat serious problem, compared with 28% who said it wasn’t a serious problem or no problem at all.
And by 49% to 36%, they disapproved of the way U.S. President Donald Trump was handling Jew-hatred.
Recent incidents of violence against Jews heightened concerns about the rise in antisemitism, which has spiked since the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The list includes the Jews attacked with Molotov cocktails in Boulder, Colo.; the killing of two Israeli embassy employees, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, in Washington, D.C.; and the arson attack against the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion after Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro had finished a Passover seder.
At the same time, support for Israel has reached an all-time low in the poll.
Just 37% said their sympathies lay more with Israelis, 32% said Palestinians and the remaining 31% had no opinion.
The percentage of support for Israel among registered voters was the lowest since Quinnipiac began asking the question in December 2001. Likewise, the backing for the Palestinians was the highest it has ever been in the survey.
Contributing to Israel’s weaker standing is the fact that 77% of respondents said that they had little or no confidence at all that there would be a ceasefire in the near future. Just 20% said that it was very or somewhat confident that the two sides would agree to an end to hostilities.
A majority (64%) of self-described Republicans sided with Israel, while 7% did with Palestinians. Among self-described Democrats, 60% chose Palestinians and 12% Israelis. The others had no opinion.
“With no end to the Israel-Gaza conflict in sight, Israel’s standing with voters slips significantly,” stated Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac. “At the same time, here in the United States, there is broad empathy for victims of antisemitism.”
The poll of 1,265 self-identified, registered voters was conducted June 5 to 9, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.