Trump now blames "a great dislike" for Israel. What the midterm data really says about U.S. support

President Donald Trump has now named Israel as one reason his party lost Congress. "They didn't like the war. They didn't like the fact that gasoline went up," he told CBS's 60 Minutes in an interview recorded Friday and aired Sunday, November 8. Then he added: "there's a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel," according to the CBS transcript.

Five days after the November 3 midterms, the evidence supports a narrower version of that claim. Most voters now say U.S. support for Israel goes too far. Pro-Israel groups put most of their money into races they lost. Yet the same surveys show the doubt sits mostly with Democratic voters, and Republican voters still mostly back the current relationship. The Iran war, which the United States and Israel launched together on February 28, moved more votes than Israel itself did.

This story sets out what the voter surveys, the spending records and the results show, and what they cannot show. It builds on our earlier reports on the Iran war's role in the results and on the long slide in U.S. opinion of Israel. The new elements here are the election-day Israel question, the money tallies published since Wednesday, and the reactions of Trump, Israel's government and Jewish groups through Sunday night.

What voters said about Israel on Election Day#

A slim majority of midterm voters said U.S. support for Israel is too strong. The Fox News Voter Poll asked 39,730 voters whether support for Israel was "too strong," "about right" or "not strong enough." Of them, 51% said too strong, 37% said about right and 12% said not strong enough, World Israel News reported from the published results. SSRS ran the survey from October 19 through November 3. It mixed online and phone interviews of registered voters with in-person interviews at some polling places, and it reached about 100,000 voters in all. The same survey feeds the AP Voter Poll used by other networks. 567politics could not open a Fox page that shows the national Israel table itself, so these figures rest on outlets that reported it.

The answer split sharply by party. Among voters who said support was too strong, 79% voted for Democrats for the House and 19% for Republicans. Among those who called it about right, 72% voted Republican. Among those who wanted stronger support, 59% voted Republican.

Those shares describe how each group voted, not how each party's voters think. Some conservative outlets read them the other way. PJ Media wrote that "only 19% of polled GOP voters" thought support was too strong and that "59% said that they thought actually our support for Israel was not strong enough." That swaps the two percentages. The 59% is the Republican share of the 12% who wanted more support. It is not the share of Republicans who want more support.

567politics converted the published shares into each party's own split. The method multiplies each answer's share of all voters by the share of that group backing each party, then divides by the party's total. It ignores third-party voters and compounds rounding, so treat the results as estimates within a point or two. The Jewish Edition made the same calculation and got the same answer for Republicans.

• Democratic voters
• Republican voters

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Too strongDemocratic voters: 74%Republican voters: 22%

About rightDemocratic voters: 18%Republican voters: 61%

Not strong enoughDemocratic voters: 9%Republican voters: 16%

Too strongAbout rightNot strong enough

Source: Fox News Voter Poll via World Israel News

Show the numbers

View	Democratic voters	Republican voters
Too strong	74%	22%
About right	18%	61%
Not strong enough	9%	16%

By that estimate, about three in four Democratic House voters said U.S. support for Israel is too strong. About three in five Republican House voters said it is about right, and roughly one in five said it is too strong. A minority of Republicans wants a change, then, and that minority is not trivial. The large majority for change sits on the Democratic side.

The polls before the vote pointed the same way#

The election-day number did not come from nowhere. In a Quinnipiac University poll of 970 registered voters taken September 3 to 6, 48% said the United States is "too supportive" of Israel, 34% said about right and 8% said not supportive enough. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.9 points. By party, 67% of Democrats, 57% of independents and 17% of Republicans said too supportive. In the same poll, 38% of voters said their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians and 35% with the Israelis. Quinnipiac called that a record high for the Palestinians since it first asked in December 2001.

Pew Research Center tracks a broader measure. In a survey of 3,507 adults taken March 23 to 29, 60% held an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% in 2025 and 42% in 2022. Republicans were still more favorable than unfavorable, 58% to 41%. But 57% of Republicans aged 18 to 49 held an unfavorable view. Our report on younger Americans and Israel covers that age gap in detail.

The questions differ in wording and population. Together they show a consistent direction, not a precise trend line.

Where the pro-Israel money went#

The spending record is the second piece of evidence. Responsible Statecraft, published by the Quincy Institute, tallied $84.1 million spent by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's super PAC, United Democracy Project (UDP), and several other affiliated PACs in decided races. It found $55.3 million of that, nearly two-thirds, went to races where the group's preferred candidate lost. By the same outlet's count, 69% of UDP's spending went to winning races in 2022 and 87% in 2024. The Quincy Institute argues for less U.S. military involvement abroad, so its tally reflects an organization with a stake in the debate. 567politics did not rebuild the tally line by line.

• Lost
• Won

Michigan Senate (against El-Sayed)

$31.47M

Illinois 9th (primary)

$6.31M

Maryland 5th (primary, for Boafo)

$5.73M

Illinois 7th (primary)

$5.03M

California 14th (special runoff)

$4.92M

Source: Responsible Statecraft

Show the numbers

Race	Lost	Won
Michigan Senate (against El-Sayed)	$31.47M	–
Illinois 9th (primary)	$6.31M	–
Maryland 5th (primary, for Boafo)	–	$5.73M
Illinois 7th (primary)	$5.03M	–
California 14th (special runoff)	$4.92M	–

The official filings show the scale. UDP reported $112.8 million in receipts and $53.6 million in independent expenditures for the 2025–26 cycle through October 14, 2026, according to its Federal Election Commission summary, retrieved November 8. That covers its pre-general report only. Later 24-hour and 48-hour reports are not in the totals yet. Independent expenditures are spent separately from campaigns and are not donations to candidates. The figures cover UDP alone, not AIPAC's members' personal giving or other pro-Israel PACs.

The biggest loss was Michigan. UDP spent $31.47 million trying to stop Abdul El-Sayed in the August primary and the general election, by Responsible Statecraft's count. El-Sayed, who has called for ending U.S. military aid to Israel, beat Republican Mike Rogers on Tuesday and will be the first Muslim U.S. senator; our Michigan report has the race details. "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice," he said to the group on election night, Al Jazeera reported. The Fox News Voter Poll found that more than half of Michigan voters said U.S. support for Israel is too strong, per Fox News. 567politics has no verified FEC snapshot on file for El-Sayed's own campaign, so this story does not report his receipts.$

Other losses ran through both parties. In Maine, AIPAC-linked groups gave more than $4.8 million in support of Sen. Susan Collins, who lost to Democrat Troy Jackson, per Al Jazeera. In California's 14th District, Aisha Wahab, a frequent critic of Israel, beat Melissa Hernandez, whom UDP and other groups backed with more than $6 million. In Texas, Democrat James Talarico won his Senate race by more than 12 points, per Al Jazeera, after saying, "I've never taken money from AIPAC, and I'm not taking money from AIPAC in this campaign."$$

The case that pro-Israel candidates still won#

Counting candidates, not dollars, gives a different picture. On Wednesday AIPAC wrote on X that "more than 234 candidates supported by AIPAC members have already won." It congratulated Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and said, "AIPAC members are determined to expand their political activism in the cycles ahead." On Thursday it updated the count to 245 winners, JNS reported. "So yes, unfortunately, 10% of the candidates they backed lost in a wave election," the group wrote.$$

Independent counts agree that most backed candidates won. Track AIPAC found pro-Israel groups backed candidates in at least 32 of 35 Senate races. They spent more than $100,000 in 26 of them, and 21 of those candidates won, per Al Jazeera. The tracking site Who Funds My Rep? counted 364 wins in 405 called races as of November 8, or 90%. It added a caveat: incumbents won 89% of called races, "so most of that record reflects safe seats."

Both counts are accurate on their own terms, and they answer different questions. The candidate count measures how often a backed candidate won, which is high because most seats are safe. The dollar count measures whether the expensive, contested bets paid off, and most did not. Neither shows that the spending caused any result. Strong candidates attract outside money, and wave years sink weak ones.

Some long-run bets did hold. Rep. Wesley Bell$ of Missouri, who beat former Rep. Cori Bush in a 2024 primary with heavy AIPAC-linked spending, won again with more than 81% of the vote. Rep. George Latimer$ of New York, who ousted Jamaal Bowman in 2024, also won re-election, per Al Jazeera. In May, AIPAC claimed credit for helping Ed Gallrein defeat Rep. Thomas Massie$ in Kentucky's Republican primary.

Vance, Trump and the Republican argument#

The sharpest claim came from inside the White House. On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that a pollster had asked Trump 2024 voters who switched to Democrats what would bring them back. The top four answers, he wrote, were "1) End the war. 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation. 3) Put America First. 4) Change our relationship to Israel." He added, "The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night," the Times of Israel reported. Vance did not name the pollster or publish the data, so the claim cannot be checked.$

Trump has now backed most of it. Asked by 60 Minutes correspondent Ross Douthat whether he agreed with Vance, Trump said, "I don't disagree with it." He also said he would launch the war again: "my answer is an emphatic yes because you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon." He said that "without us, Israel would not exist," and added that countries the United States protected "are going to pay us back."

Other Republicans read the same data differently. David Strom of HotAir argued that "our relationship with Israel did not move many votes," and that the voters who want a weaker tie "aren't Republican voters, and most of them aren't 'gettable' voters." He compared it to telling a Republican to back rent control in New York City. The party-level estimate above supports his point that most Republican voters back the current relationship. It does not settle whether the small group of Trump voters who switched, the group Vance described, cared about Israel. No public data on that group exists.

Both arguments carry a risk of overreach. Vance generalizes from one unpublished poll of defectors to the whole electorate, which is a hasty generalization unless the poll is released. Strom's critics could note that a party can lose by small margins among swing voters even when its base is content. Neither side has published evidence that settles the question. Our report on the "Israel first" debate on the right collects the online reactions on each side.

The war mattered more than Israel did#

The Iran war carries more measurable weight. In the same survey, 63% of voters said the United States made the wrong decision in launching military action against Iran, and 83% of that group voted Democratic, per World Israel News. Our earlier report found that about a third of voters called the war a crucial factor in their vote, behind the cost of living and corruption. Its effects ran through gasoline and diesel prices as much as through views of Israel; our Election Day report has those figures.

The two issues overlap. Israel joined the opening strikes, and before the vote the AP reported that its prime minister was pressing Trump for another wave of strikes once the midterms were over. A voter angry about the war may also say support for Israel is too strong. The surveys cannot separate those motives.

The war's status as of Sunday night was unresolved. Trump said on Thursday he would decide "soon" whether to resume all-out strikes. "I would rather not destroy the rest of the country if possible, but maybe I will have to," he said, Axios reported. U.S. forces hit air defenses on Iran's Qeshm Island on Friday night in what Trump called "minor strikes," Euronews reported. On Sunday Trump told CNN that a new offensive was "highly unlikely" if Iran signs "a very strong agreement," the Times of Israel reported. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said mediators had stopped traveling since the "shock" of the U.S. results. "American voters have made their choice. Time for the White House to make its own," he wrote on X.

How Jewish voters and Israel's government responded#

Jewish voters did not leave the Democratic Party. The Fox News Voter Poll found 68% of Jewish voters backed Democrats and 31% Republicans. A separate survey for J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group, found 72% Democratic and 26% Republican, the same Democratic share as in 2024, the Times of Israel reported. GBAO Strategies polled 800 Jewish voters by text from October 28 to November 3, with a margin of error of 3.5 points. Because J Street commissioned it, readers should weigh it alongside the larger Fox sample.

The J Street poll found a wide age gap. Among Jewish voters aged 18 to 34, 49% said they sympathize more with Palestinians and 20% with Israelis. Among those aged 50 to 64, 53% sympathized more with Israelis and 9% with Palestinians. Overall, 30% backed unconditional support for Israel, 39% support conditioned on "US interests and values," and 31% said Israel committed genocide in Gaza and military aid should end.

Some Jewish community leaders described alarm. "I've been on the phone with a lot of unhappy Jewish people from across the country this morning," B'nai B'rith International CEO Evan Bernstein told JNS. "I think people are scared. They're nervous." The Republican Jewish Coalition had called El-Sayed "the most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America," and the Anti-Defamation League criticized his decision to campaign with streamer Hasan Piker. Ron Halber of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington offered another reading. "American Jews are struggling with Israel's reputation," he told JNS, so a candidate's stance on Israel "may have been a little less important than it was in the past."

Israel's government has framed the aid change as a choice. On Election Day Trump said the United States would end about $4 billion in yearly military aid, which 567politics reported. On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office wrote that the move "from aid to partnership shows the strength and sophistication of our relationship," Algemeiner reported. Trump had linked the decision to the campaign. "Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don't need it?" he said. The current agreement runs through fiscal 2028, and the White House has not said how it would end early.

Israel's own politics also shifted this week. On Sunday President Isaac Herzog tasked Gadi Eisenkot with forming the next government after 67 members of the Knesset recommended him and 46 recommended Netanyahu, JTA reported. Eisenkot has up to six weeks. Our coverage of Netanyahu's lost majority explains the arithmetic.

1. Nov. 3Voters elect Democratic majorities; Trump says $4 billion in yearly aid to Israel will end
2. Nov. 4Vance says "the reason we lost is the war"; AIPAC counts more than 234 backed winners
3. Nov. 5Trump says an Iran war decision is coming "soon"
4. Nov. 6Netanyahu's office calls the aid change a move "from aid to partnership"
5. Nov. 7U.S. strikes air defenses on Qeshm Island; Al Jazeera reports most pro-Israel PAC money went to losing races
6. Nov. 8Herzog tasks Eisenkot; Trump tells CNN new Iran strikes are "highly unlikely" with a deal and tells 60 Minutes of "a great dislike" for Israel

Where the parties stand#

The two parties now hold different median views on Israel, and each is split inside. Democrats will control both chambers in January. Their leaders, Schumer and Jeffries, have long backed close ties with Israel, while new members such as El-Sayed want to end military aid. The Democratic Party profile and the Republican Party profile set out each party's stated positions. The U.S. spectrum chart below shows where 567politics places the parties and caucuses. Its positions are dated editorial estimates, not measured scores, and the chart may change after publication.

What the evidence shows and what it does not#

Three findings are well supported. A slim majority of 2026 voters said U.S. support for Israel is too strong, matching a trend that Pew and Quinnipiac recorded before the vote. Most pro-Israel PAC money in contested races went to losing candidates, even though most backed candidates won. And the view that support is too strong is concentrated among Democratic voters, with about one in five Republican voters sharing it.

Three claims go beyond the evidence. No survey shows that Israel decided any single race. Vance's account of what switching voters want rests on a poll no one has published. And "a great dislike" for Israel overstates what voters said. The surveys measured whether U.S. support is too strong, not dislike of Israel itself, and 49% of voters still said support was about right or not strong enough.

Several questions remain open. Will Democrats use the December 11 government funding deadline, or wait for their majorities in January, to press on the war or on aid? Will AIPAC's donors keep paying for primaries after this cycle's losses? And will Republican leaders follow Vance or hold to the current policy? For how 567politics handles polls and attributed claims, see our methodology.

Differing perspectives

What do the 2026 midterm results say about how U.S. policy toward Israel should change, if at all?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Change the relationship and end the war

  Who holds it: Vice President JD Vance and Republicans who opposed the Iran war; Donald Trump Jr. endorsed his post

  Vance argues that many people who voted for Trump in 2024 backed Democrats in 2026, and that a pollster's survey of those voters found four main asks: end the war, focus on the cost of living, put America first, and change the relationship with Israel. He says the reason Republicans lost is the war, and that anyone who thinks it was worth losing the Senate should make that case openly. In this view, winning back those voters requires a foreign policy less tied to Israel's priorities.

  In their words: The Times of Israel, quoting Vance's X post ↗

• Keep bipartisan support for Israel

  Who holds it: AIPAC and its members, and Democratic and Republican lawmakers it backed

  AIPAC argues that the election confirmed broad support for Israel in both parties. It says more than 234 candidates backed by its members won on election night, later updated to 245, and that only about 10% of backed candidates lost in a wave year. It congratulated Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and says its members will expand their political activity, backing candidates in both parties who see a strong partnership with Israel as good for U.S. security, peace and trade.

  In their words: The National News Desk, quoting AIPAC's post on X ↗

• Make support conditional on U.S. interests

  Who holds it: J Street, the liberal pro-Israel group, and the pollster it hired, GBAO Strategies

  J Street argues that most American Jews favor support for Israel that is tied to U.S. interests and values rather than unconditional backing, and that criticism of Israeli policy did not drive Jewish voters from Democrats. It points to its election survey, which found 72% of Jewish voters backed Democrats, unchanged from 2024, and wide support for sanctions on violent settlers. It says it backed a record number of candidates who support Israel's future, democracy and a peaceful end to the conflict.

  In their words: The Times of Israel, reporting J Street's survey ↗

• Read Israel as a minor factor for Republicans

  Who holds it: Conservative writers including HotAir's David Strom and pro-Israel Republicans

  This view argues that Israel moved few votes and that voters who want a weaker tie are mostly Democrats whom Republicans cannot win. Strom points to the election-day survey, where about half of voters said support was too strong but Republican voters mostly called it about right or too weak. He says prices and tariffs did more damage, and that moving away from Israel would cost Republicans many of their own voters while gaining few. In this view, the party should fix costs and keep its Israel policy.

  In their words: HotAir ↗

• Treat lobby money as a liability and cut aid

  Who holds it: The Quincy Institute and its outlet Responsible Statecraft, and Israel critics such as Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed

  This view argues that pro-Israel PAC spending has become a burden for the candidates it backs. The Quincy Institute's tally found about $55 million of $84 million in this network's spending went to losing races, against far better records in 2022 and 2024. Its vice president, Trita Parsi, says candidates now find the donations toxic and reject them. Supporters point to El-Sayed, who called for ending military aid to Israel and won a Senate seat despite more than $31 million spent against him.

  In their words: Al Jazeera, quoting Trita Parsi and El-Sayed ↗

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