(José Niño, Headline USA) In a stunning reversal, new polling shows Democrats now sympathize with Palestinians by a wide margin.
Harry Enten, CNN’s data expert, analyzed the latest Democratic Party polling on attitudes toward Israel and the Palestinians earlier this month during a morning segment on CNN’s “News Central.”
He expressed amazement at the dramatic change in opinion and said he’s “rarely” witnessed anything like it in his extensive experience examining polling data.
Enten discussed these findings with anchor Kate Bolduan, referencing Zohran Mamdani’s decisive win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in last week’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary, where Mamdani’s progressive stance on Israel became a defining campaign issue.
The polling data Enten presented painted a picture of a significant political realignment.
“What are we talking about here? All right, who do Democrats sympathize more with: Israelis or Palestinians? In 2017, the Democratic Party was a pro-Israeli party. Look at this. They sympathized with the Israelis by 13 points—more with the Israelis than the Palestinians. But look at this sea change. Now, Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians by 43 points,” Enten added.
The magnitude of this shift clearly struck Enten, who has spent years analyzing polling trends. “Oh my God! That is a change in the margin of 56 points over the course of just eight years. So all of a sudden, it’s the pro-Palestinian position that actually reigns supreme in Democratic politics, not the Israeli position,” he observed.
Enten emphasized that this transformation helps explain why Cuomo’s attacks on Mamdani’s Israel stance failed to resonate: “Those attacks over Israel, simply put, did not ring true for Democrats. They’re now on the side of the Palestinians, not the Israelis.”
The data becomes even more dramatic when examining younger Democrat voters, who formed Mamdani’s core constituency. When Bolduan asked about the breakdown among younger Democrat voters, Enten revealed an even more striking pattern:
So take a look here. Who do aged 18 to 49 Democrats sympathize more with: the Israelis or the Palestinians? Again, in 2017, younger Democrats sympathized more with the Israelis by 14 points. Look at this shift: now, Palestinians—they sympathize with the Palestinians by 57 points. That is an over 70-point shift in the margin in just a matter of eight years!
Enten’s breakdown of these numbers underscored their historical significance.
“I rarely ever see shifts like this, Kate, in which you see one side of the equation leading by 14 points eight years ago, and then all of a sudden the other side of the equation leading by 57 points,” he said to Bolduan.
He connected this demographic shift directly to the broader progressive movement within the Democratic Party, noting that “younger Democrats—Mamdani’s base, and also the base of democratic socialists like himself, like Bernie Sanders, like AOC—they have just shifted more so than I think anyone could possibly have imagined, say, eight years ago.”
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
