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An average 43% of Americans identified politically as independents in 2014, establishing a new high in Gallup telephone poll trends back to 1988. In terms of national identification with the two major parties, Democrats continued to hold a modest edge over Republicans, 30% to 26%.

Since 2008, the percentage of political independents -- those who identify as such before their leanings to the two major parties are taken into account -- has steadily climbed from 35% to the current 43%, exceeding 40% each of the last four years. Prior to 2011, the high in independent identification was 39% in 1995 and 1999. The recent rise in political independence has come at the expense of both parties, but more among Democrats than among Republicans. Over the last six years, Democratic identification has fallen from 36% -- the highest in the last 25 years -- to 30%. Meanwhile, Republican identification is down from 28% in 2008 to 26% last year.

These changes have left both parties at or near low points in the percentage who identify themselves as core supporters of the party. Although the party identification data compiled in telephone polls since 1988 are not directly comparable to the in-person polling Gallup collected before then, the percentages identifying as Democrats prior to 1988 were so high that it is safe to say the average 30% identifying as Democrats last year is the lowest since at least the 1950s. Republican identification, at 26%, is a shade higher than the 25% in 2013. Not since 1983, the year before Ronald Reagan's landslide re-election victory, have fewer Americans identified as Republicans. The decline in identification with both parties in recent years comes as dissatisfaction with government has emerged as one of the most important problems facing the country, according to Americans. This is likely due to the partisan gridlock that has come from divided party control of the federal government. Trust in the government to handle problems more generally is the lowest Gallup has measured to date, and Americans' favorable ratings of both parties are at or near historical lows. Thus, the rise in U.S. political independence likely flows from the high level of frustration with the government and the political parties that control it.

But if this is an indication that Clinton will pursue the usual hardline policies calculated to pander to Israel’s most extreme supporters, it is also a sign that she, like other mainstream US politicians, is moving away from large segments of the US public, particularly the base of her own Democratic Party. This is illustrated in a poll from Bloomberg Politics, published Wednesday. Here are the key highlights: Israel has become a deeply partisan issue for ordinary Americans as well as for politicians in Washington, a shift that may represent a watershed moment in foreign policy and carry implications for domestic politics after decades of general bipartisan consensus. Republicans by a ratio of more than 2-to-1 say the US should support Israel even when its stances diverge with American interests, a new Bloomberg Politics poll finds. Democrats, by roughly the same ratio, say the opposite is true and that the US must pursue its own interests over Israel’s.

Further illustrating how sharply partisan the debate has become, Republicans say they feel more sympathetic to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than to their own president, 67 percent to 16 percent, while Democrats are more sympathetic to President Barack Obama than to Israel’s prime minister, 76 percent to 9 percent. The survey also highlights how differently the nuclear negotiations with Iran are seen between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats, by a nearly 3-to-1 ratio, said they were more optimistic than pessimistic that a tentative deal with Iran announced this month will contain Iran’s ability to get nuclear weapons and thus make the world safer.

By a 2-to-1 margin, Republicans were more pessimistic than optimistic about the impacts of a deal. Majorities of Americans in both parties say any deal Obama makes with Iran should be subject to congressional approval, and that Iran is an unreliable negotiating partner because it is a religious theocracy.

Last week, several polls came out assessing U.S. public opinion on intervention in Syria. According to the Huffington Post poll, Americans oppose U.S. air strikes on Syria by 3-to-1. They oppose sending arms to the rebels by 4-to-1. They oppose putting U.S. ground troops into Syria by 14-to-1. Democrats, Republicans and independents are all against getting involved in that civil war that has produced 1.2 million refugees and 70,000 dead. A CBS/New York Times poll found that by 62-to-24 Americans want to stay out of the Syrian war. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that by 61-to-10 Americans oppose any U.S. intervention. But the numbers shift when the public is asked if it would make a difference if the Syrian regime used poison gas. In that case, opposition to U.S. intervention drops to 44-to-27 in Reuters/Ipsos.

Yet on the Sunday talk shows and cable news, the hawks are over-represented. To have a senator call for arming the rebels and U.S. air strikes is a better ratings "get" than to have on a senator who wants to stay out of the war. In that same CBS poll, however, the 10 percent of all Americans who say they follow the Syrian situation closely were evenly divided, 47-to-48, on whether to intervene. The portrait of America that emerges is of a nation not overly interested in what is going on in Syria, but which overwhelmingly wants to stay out of the war. But it is also a nation whose foreign policy elites are far more interventionist and far more supportive of sending weapons to the rebels and using U.S. air power. From these polls, it is hard not to escape the conclusion that the Beltway elites who shape U.S. foreign policy no longer represent the manifest will of Middle America.

The election of Republican businessman Donald Trump as president of the United States has some Californians dreaming - of their own country.One in every three California residents supports the most populous U.S. state's peaceful withdrawal from the union, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, many of them Democrats strongly opposed to Trump's ascension to the country's highest office.The 32 percent support rate is sharply higher than the last time the poll asked Californians about secession, in 2014, when one-in-five or 20 percent favored it around the time Scotland held its independence referendum and voted to remain in the United Kingdom.California also far surpasses the national average favoring secession, which stood at 22 percent, down from 24 percent in 2014.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's lead over Republican rival Donald Trump narrowed to less than 3 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday, down from nearly eight points on Monday.About 42 percent of likely voters favored Clinton, to Trump's 39 percent, according to the July 31-Aug. 4 online poll of 1,154 likely voters. The poll had a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points, meaning that the results suggest the race is roughly even.Among registered voters over the same period, Clinton held a lead of five percentage points, down from eight percentage points on Monday, according to the poll. The reasons behind the shift were unclear.

A new poll finds that 55 percent of Australians see boycotting Israeli goods and services as a reasonable way to apply pressure in support of Palestinians rights. That is up from just 31 percent who expressed support for the boycott of Israel in 2014. In the same period, the number who said they would not support a boycott of Israel fell from 47 percent to just 25 percent. One in five remains undecided. Overall, 34 percent of Australians said they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, an increase from the 27 percent who held that view in 2014. Fewer Australians (26 percent) said they sympathize more with Israelis than with Palestinians.

y a large margin, Australians oppose Israel’s construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian land: 61 percent are against the settlements, while 17 percent support them. More than half of respondents disapprove of the Australian government’s rejection of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted in December to demand Israel stop settlement activities, which are illegal under international law.

A general measure of sympathy for the Palestinian cause is the number of Australians who say their country should recognize Palestine as a state. That is now up to 73 percent, from 62 percent in 2011, according to the survey. Just eight percent oppose such recognition.

According to a new Washington Post-ABC poll, Barack Obama now ranks among the least popular presidents in the last century. In fact, his approval rating is lower than Bush’s was in his fifth year in office. Obama’s overall approval rating stands at a dismal 43 percent, with a full 55 percent of the public “disapproving of the way he is handling the economy”. The same percentage  of people “disapprove of the way he is handling his job as president”.  Thus, on the two main issues, leadership and the economy, Obama gets failing grades. An even higher percentage of people are upset at the way the president is implementing his signature health care system dubbed “Obamacare”.  When asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling “implementation of the new health care law?” A full 62% said they disapprove, although I suspect that the anger has less to do with the plan’s “implementation” than it does with the fact that Obamacare is widely seen as a profit-delivery system for the voracious insurance industry.  Notwithstanding the administration’s impressive public relations campaign, a clear majority of people have seen through Obama’s health care ruse and given the program a big thumb’s down.

Of course, Obamacare is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The list of policy disasters that preceded this latest fiasco is nearly endless,  including everything from blanket pardons for the Wall Street big-wigs who took down the global financial system, to re-upping the Bush tax cuts, to appointing a commission of deficit hawks to slash Social Security and Medicare (Bowles-Simpson), to breaking his word on Gitmo, to reneging on his promise to pass Card Check, to expanding to wars in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, to droning 4-times as many civilians as the homicidal maniac he replaced as president in 2008.

All told, Obama has been bad for the economy, bad for civil liberties, bad for minorities,  bad for foreign wars, and bad for health care. He has, however, been a very effective lackey-sock puppet for Wall Street, Big Pharma, the oil magnates, and the other 1% -vermin Kleptocrats who run the country and who will undoubtedly attend his $100,000-per-plate speaking engagements when he finally retires in comfort to some gated community where he’ll work on his memoirs and cash in on his 8 years of faithful service to the racketeer class.

A new poll suggests Americans have very little appetite for any real involvement in the crisis in Ukraine. Only 29 percent of Americans would like for the Obama administration to take a "firm stand" against Russia's incursion into its neighbor, according to the Pew Research Center poll, while nearly twice as many -- 56 percent -- prefer the United States not to get too involved in Ukraine. Another 15 percent did not have an opinion. The poll reflects a war-weary American public that is still very reticent to get involved in international conflicts. The American people were similarly opposed to military intervention in Syria last year, despite President Obama calling for the use of force and seeking congressional approval for action.

Few are talking in terms of military intervention in Ukraine right now. Opposition to getting involved in Ukraine is bipartisan, with at least 50 percent of Democrats, Republicans and independents all expressing opposition to an active role in the crisis there. The poll follows on a Washington Post-ABC News poll from earlier Tuesday that showed a majority of Americans support sanctions against Russia. But just 28 percent support sanctions "strongly."

The public’s approval rating for Congress has finally hit rock bottom: For the first time, America has a higher opinion of car salespeople. A new Economist/YouGov.com poll put the approval rating of Congress at a historic low of 6 percent. A December 2012 Gallup poll comparing Congress' approval ratings to other occupations had car salespeople at the bottom at 8 percent and Congress at 10 percent. Now Congress is the cellar dweller. The nation’s bad opinion of Congress, impacted by inaction, budget fights and the battle over the filibuster, has also spread to Senate leaders. Just 19 percent approve of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell while 54 percent disapprove. Democratic leader Sen. Harry Reid’s ratings are 52 percent unfavorable, 25 percent favorable.

“What Americans are sure about is how they feel about Congress in general. They don’t like it, and haven’t liked it for a while,” said the poll. “But Congress’s approval rating in this week’s Economist/YouGov Poll matches its all-time low. Just 6 percent approve of the way Congress is handling its job. 72 percent disapprove.” “Only 10 percent of Democrats, 7 percent of Republicans, and 3 percent of independents approve of Congress.

hree quarters of highly educated, high income, publicly active US Democrats — the so-called “opinion elites” — believe Israel has too much influence on US foreign policy, almost half of them consider Israel to be a racist country, and fewer than half of them believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. These are among the findings of a new survey carried out by US political consultant Frank Luntz

Detailing the survey results to The Times of Israel on Sunday, Luntz called the findings “a disaster” for Israel. He summed them up by saying that the Democratic opinion elites are converting to the Palestinians, and “Israel can no longer claim to have the bipartisan support of America.” He said he “knew there was a shift” in attitudes to Israel among US Democrats “and I have been seeing it get worse” in his ongoing polls. But the new findings surprised and shocked him, nonetheless. “I didn’t expect it to become this blatant and this deep.” A prominent US political consultant known best for his work with Republicans, Luntz is meeting with a series of high-level Israeli officials this week to discuss the survey and consult on how to grapple with the trends it exposes.

• Asked whether the US should support Israel or the Palestinians, a vast 90% of Republicans and a far lower 51% of Democrats said Israel. Another 8% of Republicans and 31% of Democrats were neutral. And 18% of Democrats said the Palestinians, compared to 2% of Republicans. Overall, 68% of those polled said the US should support Israel, and 10% said the US should support the Palestinians. • Asked about which side they themselves support, 88% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats said they were “pro-Israeli” while 4% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats said they were “pro-Palestinian.” • Asked if settlements are an impediment to peace, 75% of Democrats and 25% of Republicans agreed.

Support for the war in Afghanistan has dipped below 20%, according to a new national poll, making the country's longest military conflict arguably its most unpopular one as well. The CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that a majority of Americans would like to see U.S. troops pull out of Afghanistan before the December 2014 deadline.

Just 17% of those questioned say they support the 12-year-long war, down from 52% in December 2008. Opposition to the conflict now stands at 82%, up from 46% five years ago.

"Independents have a much gloomier view of the war in Afghanistan than Republicans or Democrats," Holland said. "That may be because a Republican president started the war and a Democratic president has continued it, so there may be some residual support among people who identify with either party."

November 21, 2014

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is progressives' runaway favorite for president in 2016, with Sen. Bernie Sanders in second place, a new poll shows.Sanders, I-Vt., who says he's considering a presidential run, edged out former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, 24 percent to 23 percent, according to Democracy for America's first 2016 Presidential Pulse poll of its members.More than 42 percent of respondents wanted Warren to run for president, although she has said she's not running. Warren's strong showing wasn't a surprise, but Sanders' placement ahead of Clinton shows "the race for the Democratic nomination is far from locked" among progressives, according to the group, founded by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean."If they decide to get in the race, our poll clearly shows that any number of candidates could win Democracy for America members' support, especially if they focus their campaign on combatting income inequality, the driving issue of the 2016 campaign," Charles Chamberlain, DFA's executive director said in a statement.

From Nov. 6-to18, the group's members cast 164,733 votes for potential candidates, with members able to rank their votes for up to three potential candidates. The group released a portion of the poll on Thursday.Behind Clinton came former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich at 3 percent and Vice President Joe Biden at 2 percent.

According to a new poll released by International Consulting Services (ICS), approximately 57% of Venezuelans have confidence that the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro will improve the economy. The poll also featured several results which suggest that Chavismo continues to be the preferred political option for the country's citizens.  In the midst of an economic crisis triggered by crashing oil prices and economic war in which basic goods remain scarce, only one fourth of Venezuelans regard scarcities as the country's biggest problem. This finding contradicts the image of widespread hunger and desperation among Venezuelans projected by the international media.  Moreover, in the face of an inflation rate fast approaching 70%, only 1 in 10 Venezuelans consider inflation as the nation's principal issue. Rather, insecurity, a perennial problem in Venezuela, remains the top concern for half of the country's citizens. 

The study also contained some unexpected findings regarding upcoming parliamentary elections. Contrary to international predictions of a landslide victory for the opposition, 43.6% of Venezuelans said they would vote for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allied parties if elections were held today.  This figure means that even in the midst of acute economic difficulties, the PSUV retains a strong lead over the opposition, which was the preference of less than 32% of poll respondents.  Additionally, the poll found that on the eve of the second anniversary of the death of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, around 62% of Venezuelans consider themselves chavistas, or "partisans... of the ideals" of the late Venezuelan leader. This result attests to the ongoing majoritarian popularity of the Bolivarian project initiated by Chávez, even despite his physical absence. 

The poll was conducted between February 10 and February 20 and included a sample of 1300 respondents drawn from every state in the country. The figures were reported with a confidence level of 95%. 

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush now leads the field of prospective Republican candidates for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, but former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoys a decided advantage over Bush and other potential GOP rivals in hypothetical general election matchups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. At this early stage in the 2016 competition, the prospective candidates suffer from image weaknesses, but the Republicans have a more acute problem. Most Republicans are not well known, but at this point, not a single one of six Republicans included in the survey has a favorability rating that is net positive.

Bush — by far the best known among those running for the GOP nomination — is viewed favorably by 33 percent of the public, while 53 percent say they view him unfavorably. Only Clinton among all those included in the poll has a net positive rating, but by the slender margin of three percentage points (49 percent to 46 percent). Her favorability rating has dropped nine points in the past year and 18 points since she left the State Department in 2013. Clinton stands now as the leading contender in either party for the White House, with no serious opposition at this point in the race for the Democratic nomination. But as she prepares to launch her campaign, she emerges also as a polarizing figure, with huge differences in the way she is perceived by Republicans and Democrats. [Full poll results here.]

On Monday, CNN released a poll indicating that 40 percent of Americans think the terrorists are winning the war on terror. It's a grim, weird finding that offers more questions about perceptions of terror than answers. Why are people in rural areas slightly more concerned about being killed in a terror attack than people in cities, as the poll finds? It doesn't make much sense, given where terrorists usually find their targets. The poll also had some good news for the White House: More than half of the country has a great deal or a moderate amount of confidence in the administration to protect the country from future terrorist acts. Among Democrats, 83 percent have confidence in the administration's ability to tackle terrorism, compared to only 17 percent of Republicans. That's pretty close to President Obama's Gallup approval ratings by party, with Republicans a bit more confident in Obama's ability to protect us than they approve of his job performance. The "who's winning the war on terror" question is similarly split on party lines, though less dramatically. Seventy-five percent of Democrats think that either the U.S. is winning or there's no clear winner, while more than half of Republicans think the terrorists are winning.

With big splits like that, it's little wonder, then, that even something like the imminent threat of a terror attack is viewed through a partisan lens. Among Democrats, 61 percent are not too worried about being killed in an attack, according to that CNN/ORC poll. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans are. And that almost certainly answers our rural/urban terror question. People in rural areas are probably worried about terror attacks because they're Republican, not because of where they live. Partisanship soaked in deep.

Fear-mongering gets most people to believe a phantom terrorist threat exists. State-sponsored false flags like 9/11 (the mother of them all), Paris in mid-November and most recently San Bernardino, make it easy to manipulate an uninformed public to support policies demanding condemnation. As long as most people rely on television for so-called news and information, they’ll remain mindless that terrorists “R” us. US intelligence covertly supports Al Qaeda and its affiliated entities. New York Times/CBS polling data show pre-Paris and San Bernardino, only 4% of Americans called terrorism the nation’s top problem. Now it’s 19%. Chances of a significant terrorist attack on US soil (a real one, not a false flag) is near zero. Public opinion believes otherwise. Asked in The Times/CBS poll “how likely is a terror attack in the US,” 44% said very, 35% somewhat, and only 17% not too likely or not at all.

These numbers are the highest registered since since the post-9/11 October 1, 2001 Times/CBS poll. Asked the same question about the likelihood of a terrorist attack in America, 53% of respondents said very, 35% somewhat, and only 10% not too likely or not at all. Fear-mongering aided by false flags works. Instead of focusing on real issues like protracted Main Street Depression conditions, poverty and the threat of possible nuclear war, most people  nonsensically believe a phantom terrorist threat is likely or somewhat likely – not realizing they’ve been duped to support an agenda harming their welfare and security. For the first time since 2006 (before the 2008 financial crisis, creating protracted Main Street Depression conditions), most Americans fear a terrorist attack on US soil – either homegrown (63%) or originating from abroad (59%), clear evidence of public ignorance and the power of propaganda to manipulate people effectively. Nearly 70% of Americans consider ISIS a major threat. Only 11% say not at all – the public mindless about US responsibility for creating the terror group and others like it, used as imperial foot soldiers. Only one-fourth of Americans think the fight against ISIS is going well or somewhat well – not realizing Washington supports what it claims to oppose, or understanding US imperial wars caused the greatest refugee crisis since WW II.

The public is evenly divided on whether to let displaced Syrians enter America – even after a careful vetting process to screen out threats. Post-San Bernardino, Obama’s approval rating on combating terrorism sunk to 34%, a record low. 57% of Americans disapprove of how he’s handling the issue, a record high. Two-thirds of Democrats support him, compared to 90% of Republicans and 60% of independents against. His overall approval rating is 44% – astonishing it’s not much lower given how gravely he’s affected the welfare of the vast majority of Americans. Only 24% believe the country is headed in the right direction. The Times/CBS poll was conducted from December 4 – 8 among a random sample of 1,275 adults nationwide.

A new public opinion survey undertaken in six Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey finds that people are more likely to blame “corrupt, repressive, and unrepresentative governments” and “religious figures and groups promoting extremist ideas and/or incorrect religious interpretations” for the rise of violent groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State than they are to blame “anger at the United States.” These findings are the result of a series of face-to-face polls conducted by Zogby Research Services on a commission from the Sir Bani Yas Forum in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and released at a Middle East Institute-sponsored event on Wednesday. In September, ZRS interviewed a total of 7,400 adults across eight countries—Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE—on a broad range of topics, including the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen; the Israel-Palestine situation; the Iranian nuclear deal; and the threat of religious extremism. Respondents in Iran and Iraq were also asked a separate series of questions about internal affairs in those countries.

With respect to Israel-Palestine, the poll found that people in five of the six surveyed Arab nations are less likely to support a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace deal now than they were back in 2009, when Zogby International’s “Six-Nation Arab Opinion Poll” asked a similar question of respondents in those five countries. In Egypt, which has seen the sharpest decline in support for a peace deal, almost two-thirds of respondents said that they would oppose a peace deal “even if the Israelis agree to return all of the territories and agree to resolve the refugee issue,” compared with only 8% who answered similarly in the 2009 survey. This represents a potential risk for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has worked to improve Egyptian-Israeli relations despite the apparent feelings of most of the Egyptian public. Similar, albeit smaller, shifts were seen in Jordan (where 24% oppose a deal today, compared with 13% in 2009), Lebanon (30% vs. 18%), Saudi Arabia (36% vs. 18%), and the UAE (19% vs. 8%). Iraq was not part of the 2009 survey, but 59% of respondents in this survey said that they would also oppose a comprehensive peace deal with Israel.

Still, it was in the area of extremism and its causes where the poll generated its most interesting findings. When asked to rate eight factors on a 1-5 scale (where 1 means “very important factor”) in terms of their importance as a driver of religious extremism, respondents in all eight countries gave “anger at the U.S.” the fewest number of ones and twos, although that factor was still rated as important by a majority of respondents in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey. Zogby argued that this was a sign that Barack Obama’s attempt to leave a “softer U.S. footprint in the region pays off.” However, when asked whether the United States is playing a positive or negative role in combating extremist sectarian violence, large majorities in each country said that the U.S. was playing a negative role. Instead, the two most commonly cited factors in the development of religious extremism were “corrupt governments” and “extremist and/or incorrect religious ideas.” Other commonly cited factors, like “lack of education,” “poverty,” and “youth alienation” also speak to a consistent sense that extremism is an internal problem stemming from poor governance. Majorities in each of the eight countries except Iran agreed that “countering the messages and ideas promoted by recruiters for extremist groups” and “changing the political and social realities that cause young people to be attracted to extremist ideals” were “most important” in terms of defeating violent extremist groups like the Islamic State. Within Iraq, majorities from all three of the country’s major ethno-religious groups (Sunni Arabs, Shi?a Arabs, and Kurds) agreed that “forming a more inclusive, representative government” is the best way to resolve the conflict there, but even larger majorities from each group said that they were “not confident” that such a government will be formed within the next five years.

Last weekend Hillary Clinton joined the Republican candidates in coming down hard against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. Speaking to her financial sponsor Haim Saban as well as a D.C. audience, she described the campaign as anti-semitic and wrong, and meantime offered vague opposition to Israeli settlements. Well there’s a good reason Clinton doesn’t want the issue politicized. If the matter were actually debated openly between Republicans and Democrats, her own base would be against her. A new poll of American attitudes on the conflict from Shibley Telhami at the Brookings Institution says that Democrats favor sanctions to counter Israeli settlement construction. Telhami reports: It is notable that among Democrats, more people (49%) recommend either imposing economic sanctions or taking more serious action [re settlements], than those recommending doing nothing or limiting U.S. opposition towards (46%)

The poll also shows broad support for a one-state outcome among Americans. The poll at Telhami’s academic site defines one state as “a single democratic state in which both Jews and Arabs are full and equal citizens, covering all of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories.” Those who advocate a one-state solution, 31%, are now comparable to those who advocate a two-state solution, 35%. The most notable change is that Republicans this year equally support a two-state solution vs. one-state solution (29% each). This shows that Democrats support a two-state-solution over one state by 45 to 33. Still: a third of Dem voters are for a single democratic state with equal citizenship. Dems don’t like the Israel lobby either. The poll shows that by more than a three-to-one ratio, Democrats feel that Israel has too much influence in American politics. And Americans generally also are turned off:

Overall, twice as many Americans say the Israeli government has too much influence (37%) than say too little influence (18%), while a plurality (44 %) say it’s the right level. The story once again is more pronounced in the partisan views: Among Democrats, about half (49%) say Israel has too much influence, compared with 14% who say Israel has too little influence, and 36 % who say it’s the right level. Netanyahu’s popularity has crashed among Dems, though he’s a heroic figure to Republicans. Notice that Democratic attitudes on blame for the recent “escalation in violence” actually track attitudes on our site. Democrats understand the Palestinian violence as a response to lack of freedom: A plurality of Democrats, 37%, blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, followed by 35% who blame the absence of serious peace diplomacy, while 15% blame Palestinian extremists. In contrast, 40% of Republicans blame Palestinian extremists first…