In Michigan Poll, AIPAC Less Popular Than Either NRA or Trump

The most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in the US has "lost the PR battle," said one progressive campaigner Tuesday as new polling in Michigan—where the American Israel Public Affairs Committee poured roughly $30 million into a failed attempt to defeat Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic Senate primary this year—found that a majority of voters there disapprove of the organization.

Progress Michigan and Public Policy Polling found that with more than half of Michiganders expressing an unfavorable opinion of AIPAC and just 1-in-5 supporting the group, AIPAC is even less popular than President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the crucial swing state.

Forty-seven percent of respondents to the Michigan poll said they have an unfavorable view of the NRA, which has come to be seen as increasingly "politically toxic" as it's opposed broadly supported gun control measures and has come to be associated with an epidemic of gun violence, including mass shootings, in the US in recent decades.

“For years, pundits and political analysts have warned AIPAC to avoid receiving a similar fate to the NRA after Parkland and other avoidable tragedies from gun violence,” said Levi Teitel, communications director of Progress Michigan. “But as the world watched a genocide unfold in Gaza while AIPAC and Trump cheered it on, it has officially lost the PR battle."

While the NRA "is under legal investigations, AIPAC continues to have bipartisan influence in Michigan politics," said Teitel, as Progress Michigan suggested that its power over voters appears to be significantly waning two years into Israel's US-backed assault on Gaza, as well as attacks on free expression regarding Israel and Palestine in the US.

"AIPAC is simply out of touch with the majority of Michiganders, and this polling confirms that.”

Fifty-three percent of Michiganders said they have a "very unfavorable" view of Trump, and another 5% said their opinion of him is somewhat unfavorable, in a midterm election year in which Democratic candidates and campaigners are tying Republicans' to the president's anti-immigrant agenda, his war on Iran, and his commitment to boosting corporate profits for tech and fossil fuel companies.

AIPAC, said Teitel, "promotes an agenda that is indistinguishable" from that of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Michiganders are deeply frustrated by endless wars in the Middle East that the two governments are facilitating," he added. "AIPAC is simply out of touch with the majority of Michiganders, and this polling confirms that.”

It's not the first time candidates and lawmakers who continue to align with AIPAC have received a clear warning that the group is not aligned with a majority of voters.

Nearly a year ago, the Democratic polling firm Upswing Strategies found that almost half of voters in swing districts in Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota said they would "never" support a candidate who received funding from the group.

A clear majority of voters also told Quinnipiac University pollsters last year that they opposed the US continuing to send weapons to Israel.