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L.A. Times poll: Younger, older Californians take starkly different views of Israel-Hamas war

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L.A. Times poll: Younger, older Californians take starkly different views of Israel-Hamas war

Three months of war between Israel and Hamas have sharply split Californians, with stark divisions between the state’s older and younger voters, a new statewide poll finds.

Voters younger than 30 are far more likely to sympathize with Palestinians more than with Israelis, while those older than 65 side with Israel, according to the new poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

By 55%-18%, voters younger than 30 say Israel should agree to a cease-fire even if that would mean Hamas remains a force in Gaza.

Among voters older than 65, opinion is almost the reverse: By 52%-32%, those voters believe Israel should keep fighting until Hamas is no longer viable. Twenty-seven percent of the youngest voters and 16% of those over 65 had no opinion, the poll found.

The survey finds similarly sharp divisions along ideological lines, with the state’s most liberal voters overwhelmingly saying Israel is using too much military force in the war, while conservative voters say that the use of force has been about right or too little.

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Jen Julian, a 26-year-old progressive voter who lives in Los Angeles, is among those who feel the war has been too costly. The death toll among Palestinians — which health authorities in Gaza say is more than 23,000 — was “too much of a human cost,” she said in an interview.

Israel launched its air strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages.

“I understand Israel was attacked and felt it needed to respond to that, but this is way too much for way too long,” she said.

Joey Johnson, a 68-year-old conservative from Redding, took a different view.

“This is like Israel’s 9/11,” Johnson said. “If America was attacked the way Israel was by terrorists, we also would want to do everything we could to stop it from ever happening again. But of course it is tragic that innocent people are dying in Gaza.”

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Two-state solution still dominant

While views are divided sharply about the current war, the poll shows greater agreement among California voters on the future of the conflict.

Separate, independent Israeli and Palestinian states dividing the land remains the most favored option for all but the most conservative voters.

That so-called two-state solution has been official U.S. policy for decades and at various points in the past, at least nominally accepted as a goal by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, which has limited governing power in the West Bank.

An independent Palestinian state is opposed, however, by right-wing Israelis, who have strong sway in the current government, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Meantime, Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups reject Israel’s continued existence.

Among California voters, the two-state solution is backed by a large majority of those who have an opinion — 47% prefer two states, while 25% have no opinion and the rest divide among other options.

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Two states is what Rabbi Jonathan Klein hopes for.

As the leader of Temple Beth El in Bakersfield and a self-described “lifelong liberal Zionist,” Klein, 55, said he has kept a close watch on news out of Israel and Gaza.

“My community is pretty universally supportive of Israel’s efforts to combat what they see as an existential threat,” Klein said.

“But I recognize that just because Jews have a historic tie to the area doesn’t mean that other people don’t. Do I think co-existence is possible? I hope it is, but I do not know at this point.”

The poll finds significantly less support for an option espoused by some on the left — a unified bi-national state. One in eight voters said they would like to see a single state that would be neither Jewish nor Palestinian. Support for that comes mainly from the left, with just under 1 in 5 of the state’s liberals backing it.

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There’s very little support for Hamas’ goal of an Arab state that would control all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. While that idea has been backed by demonstrators at some recent protests, just 3% of the state’s voters support it. Support rises to 7% among those under 30 and 8% of those who identify as strongly liberal.

“Israel is an illegitimate state,” said Reza Nekumanesh, a 47-year-old Iranian American who lives in Fresno. “I don’t believe that means any particular group of people does not have the right to live and exist there in peace and equity and justice,” Nekumanesh said. “But I don’t believe any state should be founded and centered upon an ethnic or religious identity.”

At the other end of the ideological spectrum, 11% of the state’s voters back a single Israeli state controlling all the territory — the goal of the Israeli right.

Netanyahu and his allies have strong backing within Republican ranks, however, and support for Israeli control over the entire region rises to 31% among the state’s Republican voters and 43% of those who identify as strongly conservative.

Divided Sympathies

The poll finds 30% of California voters saying they sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians in the current conflict and a similar share, 28%, sympathizing with both sides equally.

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Mordecai Miller, a 74-year-old resident of Redwood City, said he felt pain for both sides, but felt closer to the plight of Israelis after Oct. 7.

“None of this war would have happened if Hamas had not intentionally attacked Israel and desired to eradicate it,” said Miller. “Israel has been forced to retaliate.”

A slightly smaller share, 24%, say they sympathize more with the Palestinians.

That includes Rami Sultan, a Palestinian American in Santa Clara who has family in Gaza.

The 41-year-old tech worker said he was incensed by what he described as “genocide.”

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“This isn’t a war on Hamas at all. This is a clear war against the Palestinian people,” said Sultan.

Sympathies vary dramatically by age and ideology.

Among voters younger than 30, for example, 44% say they sympathize more with the Palestinians, while just 14% say they sympathize more with the Israelis and 21% with both equally.

Among those 65 and older, 46% sympathize more with the Israelis, 13% with the Palestinians and 32% with both equally.

Biden caught in middle

Divided opinion over the war has left President Biden vulnerable to criticism from both left and right.

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Overall, 55% of the state’s voters disapprove of Biden’s response, while 33% approve.

But 64% of voters who describe themselves as strongly liberal disapprove of Biden’s response to the conflict, as do 67% of those who identify as strongly conservative.

The sharp division by age is a major factor, with 69% of voters younger than 30 and 65% of those 30-39 disapproving of how Biden has handled the conflict.

Melissa Brown, a 40-year-old conservative voter in San Diego, said Biden “was very strong on Israel at first, as he should have been.”

“He still is strong, but you can see him caving to the pressure from the left, sending messages that Israel needs to tone down its self-defense,” she said. “I disagree.”

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Concern over antisemitism, Islamophobia

Despite their differences over the war and the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict, large majorities of California voters across party lines share a concern about a rise in anti-Jewish or anti-Arab violence or hate incidents.

Asked about antisemitic incidents, 80% of California voters say they’re concerned about them, 12% were not concerned. Similarly, 75% said they were concerned about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim incidents, compared with 17% who were not concerned.

The poll found very little division along ideological or party lines in concern about antisemitism, but a noticeable partisan difference over anti-Muslim incidents.

Among Democrats, the share who expressed concern about antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate were about equal. Among Republicans, 81% said they were concerned about antisemitism, while 13% were not. But 60% were concerned about anti-Muslim hate, compared to 31% who were not.

The Berkeley IGS poll surveyed 8,199 California registered voters. It was conducted online in English and Spanish on Jan. 4-8.

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The results were weighted to match census and voter registration benchmarks, so estimates of the margin of error may be imprecise; however, the results have an estimated margin of error of 1.5 percentage points in either direction.

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Dem fundraising giant in the hot seat as GOP lawmakers demand answers over dodged subpoena

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Dem fundraising giant in the hot seat as GOP lawmakers demand answers over dodged subpoena

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House Republicans are demanding ActBlue, a top Democratic campaign fundraising apparatus, turn over international communications, probing whether the organization knowingly misled lawmakers and dodged subpoenas to hide weaknesses in its screening process to weed out illegal, overseas donations.

House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., collectively laid out their demands in a letter published on Tuesday.

“For more than a year, the Committees have conducted oversight regarding ActBlue’s ‘fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention,’” the letter reads.

“Recent reporting … strongly suggests that ActBlue deliberately obstructed the Committees’ investigation, including through misleading statements and noncompliance with our subpoenas.”

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BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL: LEFT-WING GROUPS DEFIANT AS GOP SHEDS LIGHT ON GROUPS TIED TO CHINA

Rep. Jim Jordan leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 10, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)

The letter is addressed to Regina Wallace-Jones, the CEO and president of ActBlue, and is the most recent entry in investigations that began in 2023 when Republicans originally raised concerns about foreign donations possibly influencing American elections.

It also follows New York Times reporting on a memo from Covington & Burling, a law firm, warning that gaps in its screening armor could present “a substantial risk for ActBlue.”

The memo, on its own, does not implicate wrongdoing or indicate that ActBlue accepted international donations. Even so, the reporting caught the eye of Republicans in Congress.

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Steil, Jordan and Comer are collectively asking ActBlue to produce two internal documents to examine the internal understanding ActBlue may have had about its own weaknesses.

The first is a resignation letter from General Counsel Aaron Ting — a document Republicans contend centers on liabilities created by ActBlue’s donation security.

Republicans believe the second, a message from ActBlue’s former legal counsel Zain Ahmad, relates to an ignored whistleblower complaint about those practices.

HOUSE HEARING RAISES RED FLAGS OVER FORMER TECH MOGUL’S ‘CCP NETWORK’ ALLEGEDLY FUNDING OF FAR-LEFT GROUPS

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) speaks to the media on his Committee’s investigation into former President Joe Biden’s cognitive state, in the Rayburn House Office Building on July 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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Republicans have already requested those documents before, but haven’t received them.

“There is considerable reason to believe that ActBlue may have deliberately withheld this responsive material to impede our investigation,” the letter states.

For its own part, ActBlue has claimed it makes every effort to ensure its fundraising complies with legal requirements.

In ActBlue’s own letter published in Nov. 2023, Wallace-Jones, the CEO, affirmed that the organization maintained the highest standards for scrutiny of its fundraising.

“Our approach is multilayered, with checks and confirmations occurring throughout the donation process to verify donors and donor information,” Wallace-Jones wrote.

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“These measures, which include compliance measures, technological tools, and manual reviews, help to ensure the identity of donors, root out potential foreign contributions, and protect donors from financial fraud.”

OVERSIGHT DEMANDS DOJ ANSWERS ON FOREIGN FUNDING OF AGITATOR GROUPS AS IRAN, ANTI-ICE PROTESTS CONTINUE

Regina Wallace-Jones of Palo Alto soaks up the first evening of the DNC Convention at the United Center in Chicago, IL on Monday, August 19, 2024. (Photo by Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

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Republican lawmakers have given ActBlue two weeks to produce the requested documentation, setting a deadline for April 28, 2026.

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“Absent these steps, the Committees are prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce our subpoenas,” the letter reads.

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Swalwell scandal sparks fears of deeper rot on Capitol Hill

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Swalwell scandal sparks fears of deeper rot on Capitol Hill

Eric Swalwell’s downfall has raised the possibility of a broader reckoning on Capitol Hill as congressional staffers, reporters and opposition researchers race to verify long-standing rumors of a sordid underground culture among the city’s most powerful.

Former lawmakers across the political spectrum have warned for years of a hushed congressional bacchanal marked by inappropriate revelry and sexual misconduct. But a sense of growing momentum gripped Congress on Tuesday, as Democrats grappled with Swalwell’s resignation and Republicans called for other lawmakers to face scrutiny.

The 72-hour collapse of Swalwell’s political career has shifted attention not only to his closest associates in Congress, but also to a larger set of sitting lawmakers from both parties suspected of lurid sexual activity. Several members have claimed that Swalwell’s alleged behavior was an open secret amid a cacophony of rumors on social media of other potential offenders.

“I think that many people knew about this for a while,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, said in an interview with The Times.

Luna, who planned to lead the charge to expel Swalwell before he resigned, alleged that young staffers would talk among one another about Swalwell’s conduct. Lawmakers should have done more to approach him about the rumors, she said.

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Multiple current and former female staffers who spoke with The Times described a broader culture of warning one another about lawmakers with reputations for inappropriate conduct.

But the warnings, passed privately among junior aides, have focused on “sleazy” activity and boundary-crossing behavior, said one former legislative aide, who asked to remain anonymous. Whispers about sleazy behavior generally do not meet the coverage threshold for traditional newsrooms, which are bound by strict ethical standards.

Another former aide said that quiet guidance shared among female staffers focused on behavior that is legal, but nevertheless viewed as unprofessional and unbecoming of members of Congress — a line that has prevented many from speaking out publicly.

Now, a race is on for leverage between two political parties facing comparable strategic risks — each with members facing growing questions over their alleged conduct — and for scoops among news outlets, seeking to break the story first.

The Monday resignations of Swalwell and Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who faced his own sex scandal, was also forcing lawmakers to address the issue publicly. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) — one of Swalwell’s closest friends in Congress — answered questions from reporters at length Tuesday, telling them he should have confronted Swalwell when he heard rumors about his behavior.

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“You let your guard down. I let him into my circle. … I deeply regret it,” Gallego said.

He denied knowing about Swalwell’s alleged misconduct when asked about the behavior.

“Look, we socialized. We went out. But I never saw him engage in any of the predatory behavior, harassment, sexual assault,” Gallego said.

Notably quiet was President Trump, who has faced sexual assault accusations of his own and frequently parried with Swalwell throughout his presidency. Although Trump posted an article reporting Swalwell’s resignation on social media, he has not commented on the matter in his own words.

The unraveling scandal comes at a time when lawmakers have come together across party lines to push for transparency in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender and alleged sex trafficker whose network of powerful associates included Democrats and Republicans alike.

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The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, details of the Swalwell scandal continued to unfold Tuesday, as a Beverly Hills woman accused him of drugging and raping her in 2018. The Times could not immediately reach his attorney; he previously denied allegations of rape and sexual misconduct made by multiple women in published accounts last week.

Sex scandals are not a new phenomenon on Capitol Hill, which has seen over a dozen members embroiled in controversy over the last decade, including Katie Hill of California, Cory Mills and Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Blake Farenthold of Texas, among others.

But several prominent former members — including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — have warned of a more widespread cultural problem.

“Every member in Congress knows not to let any young staffer get around Swalwell or Matt Gaetz. It’s not a secret there,” McCarthy said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

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Luna had pressed lawmakers to address alleged sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill. In February, she called on the “predatory freaks” in Congress to leave office as she complained about the process to get ethical complaints handled.

“It pisses me off because while some of us are actually working and busting our asses, these clowns are sexually harassing their own staff, doing illegal crap, insider trading etc,” Luna wrote at the time.

Luna said Monday that she was encouraged to see bipartisan support for expelling Swalwell and Gonzales.

A longtime staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Tuesday that allegations against Swalwell have sparked conversations about how to do more to help staffers report sexual misconduct, such as reforming procedural rules that would allow staffers to report any of their concerns directly to ethics panels, and about the need for ethics investigations to move more quickly.

“Congress has a short-term memory, that is the difficulty here,” the staffer said. “After these guys leave their seats, there needs to be a concerted and consistent effort for reforms to be established and be made permanent.”

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Video: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

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Video: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

new video loaded: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

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Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs

Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the tension between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV as Catholics expressed dismay about Mr. Trump’s attacks.

“I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” “I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. And I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace.” “Pope Leo said things that are wrong. There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.” “I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person. I don’t think he’s doing a very good job.” “I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and it had to do with the Red Cross. There’s a Red Cross worker there, which we support.” “It’s terrible. It’s gross. It’s blasphemous.” “I stand with the pope. I mean, the pope speaks the Gospel. He speaks for peace.”

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Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the tension between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV as Catholics expressed dismay about Mr. Trump’s attacks.

By Shawn Paik

April 14, 2026

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