Anti-Israel, Antisemitic Views of US Republicans Concentrated Among ‘New Entrants’ to Party, New Poll Finds

A strong majority of Republicans in the US support Israel and reject antisemitism, but “new,” more liberal entrants to the party are more likely to hold an animus toward the Jewish state and tolerate antisemitic hatred, according to a major new survey.

The Manhattan Institute, a prominent US-based think tank, has released a new poll examining the evolving makeup of the Republican Party (GOP) and its current attitudes toward Israel and Jewish Americans.

The results show a GOP that still contains a strong, reliable core of pro-Israel voters, yet one that is increasingly fractured, with a growing minority expressing skepticism toward Israel or even openly hostile antisemitic views. 

According to the poll, the majority of Republicans, defined as registered GOP voters or those who, regardless of party affiliation, voted for Donald Trump in 2024, remain consistently conservative on foreign policy and firmly supportive of Israel. The Manhattan Institute divided this group into two groups: “Core Republicans,” defined as “longstanding GOP voters who have consistently backed Republican presidential nominees since 2016 or earlier,” and “New Entrant Republicans,” defined as “recent first-time GOP presidential voters, including those who supported Democrats in 2016 or 2020 or were too young to vote in cycles before 2020.” The two blocs comprise about two-thirds and one-third of the GOP coalition, respectively.

Among the nearly 3,000 total respondents, 55 percent said that Israel is an “important and effective” US ally, while 23 percent said that Israel is “a country like any other” whose interests sometimes align with the US. An additional 12 percent agreed with a description of Israel as a “settler-colonial state” and a liability, indicating a heavy disdain for the Jewish state. 

“New Entrant Republicans” perceive Israel in a far harsher light than the general GOP base, according to the data. Among this cohort, 24 percent see Israel as a “liability” while just 39 percent still consider Israel an important ally of the US.

Notably, old guard and newer members of the Republican Party have split perspectives on Qatar, with 41 percent of new entrants viewing the Middle Eastern country favorably compared to 23 percent of “core” Republicans.

The survey also delivers a stark warning about a troubling minority within the GOP and across the broader electorate that holds openly antisemitic views. According to the results, 17 percent of current Republicans can be categorized as “anti-Jewish,” defined as those who “self-identify as both racist and antisemitic and express Holocaust denial or describe Israel as a colonial state” or “do not self-identify that way but nevertheless hold both of those extreme positions.”

The Manhattan Institute found that newer entrants are more likely to be anti-Jewish.

“Anti-Jewish Republicans are typically younger, disproportionately male, more likely to be college-educated, and significantly more likely to be New Entrant Republicans,” the survey states. “They are also more racially diverse. Consistent church attendance is one of the strongest predictors of rejecting these attitudes; infrequent church attendance is, all else equal, one of the strongest predictors of falling into this segment.”

This group is also in general more politically liberal, according to the survey: “Given that many of these voters are younger and former Democrats, more progressive policy tendencies are unsurprising.”

Notably, the Manhattan Institute found slightly higher levels of anti-Jewish sentiment (20 percent) among Democrats.

Among newer Republicans, 38 percent believe that Jews are more loyal to a foreign country than the US, compared to 24 percent of more traditional Republicans.

The “new entrant bloc is more likely to express tolerance for racist or antisemitic speech, more likely to support political violence, more conspiratorial, and — on core policy questions — considerably more liberal than the party’s traditional base,” the Manhattan Institute writes. “These voters are drawn to Trump but are not reliably attached to the Republican Party.”

A key factor in the data is age, with the survey showing a major generational divide in which older GOP voters are much more supportive of Israel and less likely to express antisemitic views than their younger cohorts.

According to the data, 25 percent of GOP voters under 50 openly express antisemitic views as opposed to just 4 percent over the age of 50.

Startlingly, a substantial amount, 37 percent, of GOP voters indicate belief in Holocaust denialism. These figures are more pronounced among young men under 50, with a majority, 54 percent, agreeing that the Holocaust “was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.” Among men over 50, 41 percent agree with the sentiment. There are also substantial divisions among racial lines. Whopping amounts of black and Latino GOP voters, 66 percent and 77 percent, respectively, believe in Holocaust denialism. Thirty percent of white GOP voters deny or minimize the Holocaust, according to the Manhattan Institute.