Friday Findings: Which Countries do Republicans and Democrats like?
We polled about China, Israel, Iran, and more.
It’s time for Friday Findings! Let’s dig right into how different sets of voters view foreign countries.
1. How younger and older partisans view eight different countries
We asked voters for their views of eight countries. How do older and younger partisans respond? Canada and the UK are broadly popular, while Mexico and Israel are the most controversial across partisanship. Israel notably has the widest division between younger and older Republicans. Over at the very bottom of the list are Iran and Russia, which partisans of all age groups view unfavorably by large margins.
But how large are those margins? Careful readers of the graph will see that Iran has a a considerable gap in views. Older Republicans are uniformly unfavorable to the country, but not all younger Democrats agree. This same gap grows even wider with China. We’ll discuss this further below.
2. How very liberal voters viewed three countries in last month’s survey
Last week, the New York Times columnist Ezra Klein wrote about the Democratic party’s effort to bring left-wing voters and influencers into its big tent. We’ll have fresh polling data on the influencers he discussed next week, but for now we’ll note that Klein included a little jab about how a certain left-wing streamer’s “opposition [...] to all ‘reactionary ideology’ is hard to square with his admiration for Hezbollah.”
While we’ve never polled Hezbollah, this got us curious about how voters of different ideological stripes view three countries in the news right now. It turns out that voters who identify as very liberal view China less unfavorably than Israel. They also view Israel and Iran unfavorably by about the same margin. Interesting! But how does it look by partisanship and age cohorts?
3. This Israel-China pattern repeats for generational party splits
Well, it turns out this pattern repeats with parties and generations. Democratic voters under 50 (mostly Gen Z and Millennials) view Israel and Iran unfavorably by about the same margin. But they view China unfavorably by a much narrower 14-point margin. Almost 3 in 10 younger Democrats view China favorably. By contrast, older Republicans hold the most starkly defined views on all three. They view Israel favorably by a huge margin, and are overwhelmingly unfavorable to both China and Iran.
4. Who is most likely to view AI favorably?
Enough about countries, what do people think about technological developments here at home? We polled about AI, and it turns out the most favorable voters are younger, college-educated, and Republican. Neat. We shared some other findings this week about AI over on Twitter. They include whether voters fear AI will replace jobs or go rogue, why some voters like AI, and why other voters don’t. Check them out!
5. Patrick Ruffini discusses the future of the Republican coalition
Our partner Patrick Ruffini was on a panel at WSJ Opinion Live this week to discuss the future of the GOP. He also joined the Central Air podcast this week with Josh Barro, Megan McArdle, and Ben Dreyfuss. You can listen to his analysis of the 2024 election and the future of Trump’s coalition here.