United States President Joe Biden is trailing Donald Trump in a new poll as his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict has faced criticism from both sides of the political party.
The youngest voters in the country, which have long been a Democratic-leaning demographic, have turned against the president as seven in ten voters aged 18 to 34 disapprove of Biden's response to the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden Trails Trump in New Poll
The Democratic president's approval rating is not at 40%, which is the lowest recorded by NBC at any point during his presidency. The latest poll also marks the first time that Biden has lagged behind his potential 2024 rival in an NBC survey.
In recent weeks, a massive generational divide has swept the U.S. amid the ongoing Middle Eastern war. Older generations have mostly favored the status quo in Washington where lawmakers have defended Israel's position and actions in the Gaza Strip.
However, Younger Americans are widely divided in favor of the U.S. calling for a ceasefire in the region, and those who largely oppose the recent campaign of Israel's military. The latter is thought to have caused a steep civilian death toll in the war-torn region, as per the Independent.
For the president, the situation in the Middle East is all the more desperate given already-present concerns regarding his ability to lead the U.S. effectively. Biden's support from within his own party is already viewed as tenuous given polling that suggests most of his party's voters prefer him to step aside.
Furthermore, a sudden drop in enthusiasm and support among Biden's younger members could also pose a serious problem for his re-election efforts moving forward. The NBC poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters across the U.S. between Nov. 10 and Nov. 14. The margin of error for the poll was 3.1 percentage points.
The White House has also sought to tread a line amid the bloody war and express condemnations of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. While the center-right has praised Biden's team, his administration has failed to win over his own party's activist base.
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Handing of the Israel-Hamas War
The poll noted that only half of Democratic voters, 51%, approved of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Roughly 60% of independent voters said that they do not approve while nearly 70% of Republicans said the same thing, according to The Hill.
The Democratic lawmakers who have called for a defunding of Israel include Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush. The situation follows a protest that broke out in front of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington D.C. last week.
However, Biden has so far resisted calls for a ceasefire and he wrote an opinion piece on Saturday where he said that as long as Hamas is clinging to its ideology of destruction, a ceasefire could not be considered peace.
The Democratic president said that a ceasefire would only provide members of the Hamas militant group more time to exploit in rebuilding their stockpile of weapons, reposition, and restart the killing of innocent people, said Axios.
