The Republican Party walked away from the midterm elections thoroughly defeated and interrogating how they lost their voting base, leading to conclusions that could dramatically change the party’s foreign policy calculus.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance both offered an unprecedented diagnosis, blaming the GOP’s support of Israel at least partially for the party’s historic defeat. Both statesmen tied U.S. support for Israel to the Iran war, claiming the foreign entanglement soured the MAGA base.
Asked why the GOP lost so decisively in an interview last week, Trump said: “[Voters] didn’t like the war. They didn’t like the fact that gasoline went up, ‘cause I had it down at a low, and there’s a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel.”
That assessment will likely raise alarm bells among pro-Israel lobbyists and voters, who are attempting to navigate the Jewish state’s historic levels of unpopularity among the American public.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which has been tracking American attitudes toward the Middle East ally for almost half a century, said in a pre-election analysis that the country has never been less popular among U.S. voters. In an annual poll conducted by the council, Americans rated Israel an average score of 44 on a 100-degree thermometer scale in 2026, down from 58 in 2022.
“American support for Israel has shifted dramatically in the three years since Hamas’ October 7 attack on the country,” the council said in its October report. “Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza and its participation in the unpopular joint US-Israeli war against Iran has cooled American sentiment toward Israel to its lowest point in Chicago Council polling since 1978.”
These findings converge with those reported by the Pew Research Center, which reported in July that 60% of American adults now have an unfavorable view of the Jewish state. Notably, dislike of Israel among younger GOP voters has leaped from 35% to 50% over the last three years. The Gallup Poll reported back in February that, for the first time in the history of their survey, more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis.
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But the president is leaning into his relationship with the Jewish state, not pulling back. In a Thursday interview with Hugh Hewitt, he called himself “very much Israel-inclined” as he lamented the perceived rise of anti-semitism in the country.
“This is like Germany in 1938 or whatever. It’s, like, crazy what’s going on,” Trump said. “When you look at the attacks on people, the racial attacks and the attacks, they’re, I guess, 57% on Jewish people, and you wouldn’t believe it.”
Vance has diverged from the president when it comes to the question of US-Israel relations. Where the president has acknowledged an impact on the GOP’s support without suggesting a change, the vice president says such a shift is a priority.
In his own post-mortem on the midterms, the vice president offered a set of four actions that the GOP needed to take to convince “those voters who had abandoned us” to “come back on our team.” The first was “end the [Iran] war,” and the last was “change our relationship with Israel.”
This analysis received praise from several high-profile members of the Trump camp, including the president himself, who stated that Vance was largely correct.
At the same time, the vice president’s comments invited a flurry of rebukes and contestations from activist groups, non-profits, and think tanks, who accused Vance of trying to shift blame onto a third party.
Mike Jernigan, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner that the simple fact souring Americans was the economy.
“I do not agree with the president and the vice president that an unfavorable opinion of Israel led to the Democrats winning the recent election,” he explained. “Gas prices were high. We all know that.”
An exit poll analysis by the Associated Press found the most important issues in voters’ minds included the economy, the “state of democracy,” immigration, and healthcare. Foreign policy ranked fifth, with only 4% of respondents citing it as their paramount consideration.
A digital billboard featuring U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displays a message in Hebrew that reads, “President Trump: Vote Netanyahu. Only with him will we complete the mission,” in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
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A digital billboard featuring U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu displays a message in Hebrew that reads, “President Trump: Vote Netanyahu. Only with him will we complete the mission,” in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. (AP Photo)
Regardless, the defeat and its cooling of intra-party enthusiasm have sharpened points of division within the GOP.
Evangelical and non-denominational Christians — large portions of whom believe the modern nation-state of Israel is a divinely ordained continuation of the Biblical nation — remain the bread-and-butter of non-Jewish support for Israel.
Christians United for Israel, a Christian Zionist organization that claims over 10 million members and was founded on the idea that support for the secular Jewish state is a divine command from God, rebuked Vance for what they called “woke rightism” and claimed it was Republicans’ discomfort with the Iran war that hindered its resolution and therefore upset voters.
“The war with Iran has indeed had a negative economic impact on the US and the world. A significant portion of the pain was wrought by the Vice President and the other isolationists in halls or with microphones of power who have sought to stop and hamstring the war effort,” CUFI said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “This war should’ve been over months ago, and if the Vice President wants someone to blame for that, he needs only look in the mirror.”
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Jewish-American voters are far less motivated by the Israel issue than their Christian Zionist counterparts. The Jewish community, as usual, broke decisively in favor of the Democratic Party in the midterm elections. Approximately 68% of Jewish voters went blue this month, despite an intense focus on alleged antisemitism from victorious candidates like Abdul el Sayed in Michigan.
“I think that both parties need to recognize that they need to earn the Jewish vote,” Jonathan Schulman, executive director of The Jewish Majority, told the Washington Examiner. The non-profit released survey results on Friday showing el Sayed received approximately 50% of the Jewish vote.
“That’s actually a very historic low mark for a Democratic candidate [with Jewish voters] and a very high mark for a Republican candidate. And what it shows is that when a candidate is this hostile, they’re starting to see change,” Schulman said. “Now, it would be a mistake to think that people are going to instantly change lifelong voting patterns based on one particular candidate, but what we’re seeing is that the Jewish vote is becoming more up-for-grabs.”
The Democrats have taken a much different lesson away from the Michigan election, claiming their victory despite relentless accusations of anti-semitism from the right proved the Jewish vote is cemented to their side.
“Even in contentious races and battleground states where critics predicted shifts among Jewish voters, our community rejected Trump-aligned candidates and delivered decisive margins for Democratic candidates,” the Jewish Democratic Council of America gloated the day after the elections. “Jewish voters made clear that their home remains firmly in the Democratic Party because our values are Democratic values.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, left, stands next to the Israeli President Isaac Herzog after a meeting at the presidential residence, in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, Pool)
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U.S. Vice President JD Vance, left, stands next to the Israeli President Isaac Herzog after a meeting at the presidential residence, in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (AP Photo)
Ultimately, the question of whether Republicans should abandon their decades-old policy of strident support with Israel will be answered by whichever faction inherits leadership of the party.
“The question is no longer only how Trump manages his coalition, but which foreign policy his movement inherits: the one Trump has practiced, which treats Israel as an instrument of American power, or the one Vance is increasingly embracing, in which the alliance itself becomes suspect,” Michael Doran, a senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, said of the future GOP posture toward Israel.
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He added: “If Trump does not make the case for his own strategy, his vice president’s choices will define it for him.”
Israel is facing its own potential changing of the guard after October elections that threaten to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power. Such a change could reset the other half of the bilateral relationship — making the future of U.S.-Israel diplomacy subject to massive flux.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
