Analysis: after 100 days of Gaza war - Where will U.S. support head toward election season?

U.S. Democratic Senator John Fetterman can be a case study for a lot of things. The tattooed first-term lawmaker from the state of Pennsylvania eschews suits for a sweatshirt and shorts and took time away for mental health issues and got elected largely on a campaign of public silence following a stroke.

In light of the war on Hamas, though, Fetterman’s views stand the starkest. Elected as a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, the junior senator from Pennsylvania emerged as a political warrior for the Jewish state, vocally willing to defy and challenge his own base in defense of Israel’s right and duty to eliminate the terrorist organization, including the devastating humanitarian costs for Gazans that comes along with it.

Politically, the gambit seemed damaging, almost suicidal. It’s been anything but.

A new Quinnipiac poll, published January 10, showed over a quarter of Pennsylvanians think more highly of Fetterman because of his professed support for Israel, compared with only 14% who hold a less favorable view of him because of the topic. While the gap is certainly more pronounced among Republicans, it is still notable among Dems and independents.

And here’s the kicker, overall, Fetterman went from a minus 7 job approval rating on October 4 (three days before the Hamas massacre) to a positive 3 this week. That’s paired with a 76 percent approval among Democrats, compared to 7 percent disapproval.

U.S. President Joe Biden lives on a different planet than Fetterman. Most people do. But it doesn’t mean the Democratic party and White House aren’t paying attention to the numbers.

In New Hampshire, another swing state with an unpredictable voting population, a poll conducted by USA TODAY/Boston Globe/Suffolk University and released this week showed 45 percent of the state’s voters say Biden's approach to the Israel-Hamas war has been "about right." Only 17 percent said he has been too supportive of Israel.

While trouble spots certainly emerge among young voters (among those under 35 years old, 49 percent say they’re less likely to vote for Biden based on his handling of the war), a New Hampshire nurse is quoted expressing her displeasure with the president’s support of Israel.

Asked, in the end, if it would affect her vote. She said "Unfortunately, no, because I have to vote for democracy in America, so I have to vote for Biden."

That is a seldom-asked question in these polls: Even if one disapproves of Biden’s handling of the war, how likely is it that they will stay out of the ballot box or vote for an opponent. That’s a truer test.

There isn’t yet enough scientific sampling on the matter yet, but in a state like Michigan, with a high Palestinian and Arab population furious with Biden, they’ll eventually need to make a choice, likely faced with a presumptive Republican nominee whose past rhetoric about Muslims and foreigners will only become more incendiary as the presidential campaign drags along.

Even national polls can sometimes be misleading. A New York Times/Siena poll last month showed just an alarming one-third of voters nationwide approved of Biden’s handling of the war. But, digging deeper, there was nearly a dead split among those who disapproved because they thought the president was too supportive of Israel as those who thought the same of his support for the Palestinians.

Whether Biden even needs to take the numbers into consideration politically depends on how much longer the Israeli military campaign in Gaza drags on for. While Israel announced this week a shift to a lower intensity phase of its operations, the army and political leaders have been clear they expect operations to carry on for months.

Unlike Republicans, Biden need not worry about a primary season. By this coming October, when almost all voters have made up their minds on a presidential candidate, the Israel-Hamas war may very well have faded away from the headlines. Remember, Ukraine was the only global conflict gripping the world’s attention on October 6.   

By that time, many young voters, who are often captured by the issue of the day, may very well have moved on to something more relevant to them.

As of now, despite the anonymous protest letters from administration staff and the occasional anti-Israel/pro-Hamas/pro-ceasefire protest at campaign events (which themselves have not exactly proven popular among much of Biden’s base), little is forcing the U.S. president to suddenly change course on the war.