A YouGov poll completed on the eve of the 2026 midterm elections has found that Americans were far less likely to back candidates who supported the US-Israel war on Iran.
The poll, released on Monday, found that 44 percent of people said they were less likely to support candidates who backed the war, while just 13 percent said they were more likely.
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That means a candidate’s support for the war was more than 3 times as likely to put people off as to win them over.
Another 26 percent, meanwhile, indicated the Iran war would not make much of a difference in their vote.
The economics of the war also factored into people’s choices. Some 56 percent of those surveyed said that the US should prioritise avoiding higher prices domestically over achieving US President Donald Trump’s military goals in Iran.
Meanwhile, 22 percent said the opposite: that the Trump administration should prioritise the war over higher costs.
The poll also asked who should decide when the war ends. A majority, 53 percent, said Congress should have the final say, while 29 percent said that the president should decide.
The US and Israel jointly launched the war against Iran on February 28. But Trump’s decision to bypass congressional authorisation for the war has raised constitutional concerns in the US.
Jonathan Guyer, the programme director at the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy firm, told Al Jazeera that the poll – which was conducted on his organisation’s behalf – indicated Americans were looking to Congress to be more assertive.
“The story of the [economic] tradeoff is really important, and then there’s this other story of where Congress has been: Why haven’t lawmakers, not just over the last year but over the last decade, played a bigger role as a backstop on reckless wars launched by presidents?” said Guyer.
“And I think these numbers show the public really wants Congress to play a bigger role and expects their lawmakers to hold power to account.”
Anti-war lane
The survey is the latest to underscore the unpopularity of the US-Israel war on Iran, which has killed thousands of people in Iran and contributed to surging prices, a top issue in the November 3 midterm elections.
Trump’s Republican Party suffered one of the most significant electoral setbacks in modern US history, with Democrats reclaiming both chambers of Congress with strong majorities.
Democrats also flipped key offices in states like Texas, once seen as a conservative stronghold.
Those results have advanced a debate over the war that is playing out in both parties, often pitting more hawkish establishment figures against newcomers opposed to foreign intervention and support for Israel.
In the wake of the “blue wave”, analysts have argued that Democratic voters may expect the party’s leadership to take firmer steps to rein in the president and bring the fighting with Iran to an end.
On Monday, Trump himself said “Iran militarily is effectively over”, though he declined to rule out any further military action. A US naval and land blockade around Iran also remains in effect.
Guyer said he anticipates that foreign policy and, in particular, US support for Israel is likely to emerge as a key dividing line for candidates in future elections, particularly the upcoming 2028 presidential election.
“I think it does create a lane for people like Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, for the wing of the [Democratic] party represented by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who have a very strong position on this war and on the role of the US in the world that traditional Democrats have been largely silent on,” said Guyer.
A similar debate is also taking place on the political right.
Following the midterms, US Vice President JD Vance shared a lengthy social media post blaming his party’s implosion on the war.
Figures such as Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene have also criticised the war as a betrayal of Trump’s promise to end conflicts around the world.
While the YouGov poll found that Republicans were the only group more likely to vote for a candidate if they supported the president’s war, Guyer says that support has been “softening”.
“A third of Republicans say that backing the war made a candidate appealing, so it’s kind of small,” he said. “And 40 percent shrugged and say it made no difference.”
Latino voters helped elect a record number of their own kind to Congress, from Republicans who have denounced President Trump to moderate Democrats to Latin Grammy winner Bobby Pulido to democratic socialists. Three of the six DSA members elected to the House for the first time are Latinas, including Angela Gonzales-Torres here in Los Angeles.
The narrative this time is that Latinos helped pull American democracy back from the jaws of MAGA, which I guess is better than the charges of self-defeating treason thrown at us two years ago. That’s when 48% of Latinos voted for Trump — a record for a Republican presidential candidate — and the GOP gained in even the bluest of Latino-heavy precincts, a shift that conservatives predicted would become larger, and permanent.
Well, New York Times data showed a 29-point shift to the Dems for Latino voters nationwide in the midterms, compared with two years ago — by far the largest of any ethnic group.
The stereotype for decades was that Latinos were a “sleeping giant”: We could be powerful one day, if only our supposed self-sabotaging mañana approach to life wasn’t holding us down. Now that we’re actually exercising our franchise, we don’t seem to be making anyone happy. Even as progressive friends of mine are celebrating the blue tsunami, they’re criticizing Latino men for not having voted more decisively for Democrats, as Latinas did.
It’s the eternal conundrum: We’re always too much or too little, and never just enough. Because we don’t fit anyone’s expectations but our own, we’re seen as an eternal threat and never reliable.
To that, I say: good.
Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa speaks to supporters at an election night event in Austin, Texas.
(Ashley Landis/Associated Press)
We’re the largest minority group in this country, increasing in voters and political power in places far from traditional strongholds. Why, Jess Rivera beat a five-term GOP incumbent to become the first Latina in the North Carolina state Senate. With our growing influence, politicians should be courting us and never assuming we’re automatically with them.
There’s also something more fascinating at work. Forget Ohio as a bellwether of American politics — look to Latinos.
Ronald Reagan’s popularity with Latinos, especially after he signed the immigration amnesty, reflected a thirst for a leader who believed in the fundamental goodness of this nation. After the GOP’s swath of xenophobic laws in the 1990s, the Latino blue wave that helped put Bill Clinton in the White House showed that we would only suffer scapegoating for so long.
Our slight shift to the right for George W. Bush showed a working class unease with a Democratic Party that signed off on NAFTA, which decimated the heartland as much as it did Mexico’s rural economy. Our embrace of Barack Obama highlighted an America mature enough to elect a Black man twice. And our lukewarm support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 compared to Obama was the signature on the death certificate of her doomed campaign.
Trump, the most anti-Latino president since James K. Polk, increased his Latino support with each presidential run because the Democratic Party couldn’t break the spell he cast over too many Americans. Tuesday’s repudiation of Trump shows that we have mostly snapped out of it — sick of his pathetic economy, his horrible immigration raids, his pointless wars and jejune insults.
If Latinos can exorcise themselves of MAGA, anyone can.
Except white people, it seems. New York Times number crunchers found that 51% of white voters nationwide chose Republican candidates. They still stood with a party that allowed Trump to lavish attention on vanity projects that even the pharaohs would consider gauche, instead of what Americans need.
Wokoso academics have long claimed that Latinos turn conservative in a desire to become white. I’ve always found that argument facile. Most of the Latino Trumpers I know are proud rancho libertarians who love to blast their corridos and apply for dual citizenship and who think gringos are weak, whiny ingrates. The one thing those Latinos did pick up from white Trump supporters was a strain of grievance politics that hasn’t historically been a part of who we are.
That may have been a natural byproduct of assimilation, which isn’t just about the language you speak or owning a home or cultural traditions. It’s also about picking up the political vibes of the powerful, which for the past decade have leaned toward MAGA’s nihilism.
But if that’s what being an American means, many Latinos said on Tuesday, then screw assimilation.
Oh, we’ll still learn English and strive for the middle class and root for the Raiders or Cowboys or Broncos or some other underachieving NFL squad. But Latinos expect more from this country than just kvetching and corruption, blind loyalty and excuses. Polls have long shown we’re among the most optimistic of Americans. And if we can still believe in this crazy democracy, then others should follow.
That’s why Americans should obsess over how Latinos vote. Because we’re not beholden to any side just yet, we’re ultimately more objective. We’ll back Democrats or Republicans if they’re doing a better job than the other party — and if they’re not, we’ll toss them out like a bad batch of enchiladas. Isn’t that the American experiment at its best?
DEARBORN, Mich. — Campaigning relentlessly across Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed didn’t highlight the possibility that he could become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. But with victory in hand, he savored his triumph over the vitriol aimed at him and his fellow Muslim Americans.
“They tried to demonize people because of how they pray,” he told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “And Michigan — the whole Michigan — clapped back. People don’t want that. They’re sick of it.”
He showed his pride in his victory speech, declaring: “My name is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.”
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath yanked anti-Muslim sentiment into the forefront of American life, those emotions are shared by many Muslim Americans in Michigan and across the country.
They saw a surge of anti-Muslim rhetoric after Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City mayor a year ago, and they saw the attacks intensify as El-Sayed became the new prime target. President Trump called him a “jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists.” Dozens of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress formed a Sharia-Free America Caucus, depicting Islam’s religious code as a threat to the U.S. Constitution.
But now, after El-Sayed’s defeat of GOP rival Mike Rogers was confirmed early Wednesday, there is a pervasive sense that a broader victory is at hand.
The outcome “represents a historic turning point for American Muslim political engagement and a historic defeat for the politics of hate,” said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Anti-Muslim extremists, Israel lobby groups and even the president of the United States used every smear in the book to paint Dr. El-Sayed as a Muslim bogeyman,” he said. “None of it was true, and none of it worked. Anti-Muslim hate was on the ballot, and it failed.”
In Dearborn, talk of ‘a beautifully American story’
Excitement over El-Sayed’s victory was palpable in Dearborn, a city near Detroit with a sizable Arab American population. The mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, said residents showed up at the ballot box in huge numbers.
“What a beautifully American story,” Hammoud said. “One of our brightest and best earned the support of the majority of Michiganders who participated in yesterday’s election. And regardless of the direction in which he prays, they’re sending him to the U.S. Senate.”
Hammoud, who has known El-Sayed for more than a decade, said although his win was important for many Arab Americans, people voted for him because of his platform, not his identity. He cited support in Dearborn for independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders, who is Jewish and caucuses with Democrats, ran on a progressive platform.
In El-Sayed, residents of Dearborn “finally saw themselves and a candidate who appealed to them, but it had to do with far more than just his ethnicity or his religion,” Hammoud said. “It was honestly because of the policies and building a coalition with this community in an honest way.”
When Zaynah Jadallah, 26, canvassed for El-Sayed in Dearborn, she said most people told her they already planned on voting for him before inviting her in for water or food. She credited the name recognition to El-Sayed’s grassroots campaigning and his pride in his Egyptian heritage.
“He’s always been proud of his identity. He never shied away from it or from saying his name,” Jadallah said.
Yasmin El-Sayed, no relation to the senator-elect, took her two daughters to the Detroit watch party from New York. She teared up after the victory speech.
“Having grown up in a post-9/11 world, being Muslim, being Arab myself, never in a million years did I think we would see what we saw today,” she said.
In a time of suspicion of government, a message of representation
El-Sayed depicted his election as a victory for all those “who don’t see themselves reflected in our government or who’ve been told that they don’t belong for some reason or another — not just how they pray but who they love, how they identify, the color of their skin, where they grew up.″
“I didn’t run to be the first Muslim senator. I ran to be the next senator of the state of Michigan who happens to be Muslim,” he said. ″But I also know that democracy is constantly about the conversation about who we are, who we want to be.”
“Michigan proved just how big we are. Rejected a hateful, spiteful campaign that had nothing to say about the issues and only wanted to point to my name and my face,” he added. ″I want all of those folks out there who have been told that America’s not big enough for them to reflect on that. America really is big enough for all of us.”
Mohamed Gula, CEO of the Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action, said he was elated by El-Sayed’s triumph after a year of “extremely Islamophobic and disgusting rhetoric being used as a campaign strategy.”
“For Abdul to come out last night and use his full name meant the world to someone who grew up in post-9/11 America, where the Muslim American community was seen through a national security lens,” Gula said.
“Our children, years from now, will be able to run for office,” he said, “to be seen as who they are.”
A debate over the place of sharia law — and its very definition
Among the most frequent targets of anti-Muslim rhetoric was sharia, the religious code that provides Muslims with guidance on how to lead righteous lives. At the Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas, some of the loudest cheers came after GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas declared: “Sharia law has no place in America.”
Muslim American civic leaders and scholars — in Texas and other states — responded forcefully to the anti-sharia rhetoric that dates back more than 15 years.
They passionately defended sharia — the way it’s practiced in the United States — as positive guidance that shares elements with the codes of other faiths, such as the Ten Commandments and the collective body of Jewish law derived from the Torah. They rebutted the claims of GOP critics that sharia is a coercive code that threatens the Constitution and the judicial system.
Gula noted that Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton were among the leaders of the anti-sharia campaign. Abbott lost his bid for reelection in Tuesday’s voting, and Paxton was trounced by Democrat James Talarico in the race for a U.S. Senate seat.
“I saw this as not just Muslims standing against Islamophobia as never before,” Gula said. “I saw Americans saying hate will not be used as a campaign issue … we are not going to accept hate.”
Asma Uddin, a professor at Michigan State University’s College of Law, has argued that many American politicians are depicting ordinary Muslim religious practices — such as prayer, choice of apparel, family counseling and mosque attendance — as evidence of political danger.
“What I find especially exciting is that El-Sayed won in a political climate where being visibly Muslim can still be a liability,” she said. His victory “gives us real reason for optimism. It suggests that anti-Muslim attacks don’t necessarily carry the political weight that those deploying them assume they do.”
GaNun, Cappelletti and Crary write for the Associated Press. Cappelletti reported from Washington and Crary from New York.
WASHINGTON — Corruption topped the list of concerns for voters who ousted Republicans and handed Democrats control of Congress in the midterm elections. Now, the newly empowered Democratic Party is putting the issue front and center as its leaders chart their course for investigations and policymaking.
Senior Democrats in both chambers of Congress have vowed to marshal the subpoena powers and larger investigative staffs that come with their soon-to-be majorities to probe what they say is the self-enrichment that President Donald Trump and people in his orbit have done at the public’s expense. The Republican president and his White House have long denied any wrongdoing.
House Democrats are preparing a vast oversight agenda to look at how Trump and his family have become wealthier since he returned to office — and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who’s in line to become House speaker, has not ruled out trying to impeach Trump for a third time.
Months ago, Jeffries tasked the ranking Democrats on the Oversight and Judiciary committees, Rep. Robert Garcia of California and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, with leading the effort, as Democrats work to link the costs of public corruption to the affordability concerns hitting Americans’ pocketbooks.
“Lawyer up,” Garcia posted on X as election results favoring Democrats began coming in on Tuesday night.
The Senate is expected to conduct similar investigations.
“Americans want us to clean up corruption in government,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is poised to return as Senate majority leader next year. “No American should have to make tradeoffs at the supermarket while Trump is making inside trades on the stock market.”
Investigation targets could include ICE raids, Epstein and DOGE
Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has outlined five priorities, including Trump family business dealings, the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, said he wants to dig into Trump’s White House ballroom and other construction projects, as well as the Trump family’s role in mineral deals.
With the House majority comes an infusion of congressional committee staff and resources, and the effort is expected to be sprawling, involving House committees with authority to conduct oversight on Cabinet officials and the agencies they lead.
In the Senate, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who is expected to become the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said his panel will want to look into Trump’s real estate projects around the nation’s capital and his crypto dealings with special envoy Steve Witkoff. Witkoff is a longtime ally who partnered with Trump on the president’s family cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.
“The tentacles of corruption reach deep in this administration, and they have added costs to everyday Americans,” Blumenthal said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday. The senator added that he also wants hearings on ICE raids, the actions of the Department of Government Efficiency and Medicare plans he says are too restrictive and have cost some patients care.
Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who is in line to become Senate Finance Committee chairman, ticked off several investigative targets that he describes as part of an “accountability” agenda, including banks that he contends ignored red flags about the financial dealings of Epstein and pharmaceutical companies that have profited from their ties to the Trump administration.
“When I am chair, they will be forced to answer to the Senate Finance Committee for their role in hurting the American people and enabling Trump’s corruption,” Wyden said in a statement Wednesday.
The issue of corruption resonated for voters, The AP Voter Poll shows
Many U.S. voters in Tuesday’s elections expressed deep concerns about government corruption and the state of democracy, according to The AP Voter Poll, which surveyed more than 100,000 voters nationwide.
While roughly 4 in 10 voters said the economy was the top issue facing the country, about 3 in 10 said that “the state of democracy” was the top issue. About half of U.S. voters said government corruption was “crucial” to their vote for Congress, and most of those voters supported the Democratic candidate in their local U.S. House race, while about one-third said they voted for the Republican.
About 8 in 10 voters who said “the state of democracy” was the top issue facing the country supported the Democrat, while about 2 in 10 supported the Republican.
Older voters, those age 65 or older, were more likely than voters under 65 to say “the state of democracy” was the most important issue facing the country. About 4 in 10 older voters pointed to this as the nation’s top problem, compared with about 3 in 10 who said the economy. That view was reversed with younger voters, who were more likely to call the economy the top issue.
That explains why anti-corruption played such a central role in Democratic campaigns this cycle, with candidates accusing their Republican opponents of looking out for themselves or their donors rather than a broader constituency. They embraced stock trading bans and bans on former members of Congress becoming lobbyists and promised to be part of an effort to root out corruption.
Democrats’ challenge: Focusing on corruption without ignoring cost-of-living issues
In his public comments since his party lost the elections, Trump has taken a conciliatory tone toward Democrats, conceding that they “did a good job” in their campaigns as he’s tried to skirt personal blame for the GOP’s midterm thrashing. That could change as investigations ramp up.
“As the president has said, he’s willing to work with anyone to continue delivering victories for hardworking Americans,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Wednesday. “If Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people.”
Schumer insisted that congressional Democrats will be able to balance legislating on key issues, such as affordability, while launching investigations to target “rampant corruption.”
In a letter to Democratic lawmakers announcing his candidacy for House speaker, Jeffries said the “days of the House functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over.”
“The massive corruption the country has experienced from the Trump Cartel explains why very little is getting done to help everyday Americans,” Jeffries wrote as he promised to target price gouging and push for a stock trading ban for lawmakers. “That changes immediately.”
The challenge for Democrats will be to continue to tie corruption to the affordability issues that topped the list of concerns for voters.
The Congressional Integrity Project, an advocacy group initially created to combat Republican investigations into President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, is now shifting its focus to help Democratic lawmakers make that connection. In a memo, the group urged congressional Democrats to trace the Trump administration’s actions to people in and outside government, as well as corporations, who may be profiting from those moves.
“Corruption is not just corruption,” said the group’s senior adviser, Jack Miller. “It is costing taxpayers and costing Americans in their everyday lives.”
Some Democratic lawmakers are already stressing that congressional investigations have to be directly tied to affordability issues, while urging restraint.
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said that Democrats need to earn voters’ trust, and while investigations are an important part of the Democratic agenda, “we can’t turn this into just a vengeance tour.”
“We have to be careful, cautious and judicious about that,” Welch said.
Kim and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro and polling writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
When it came to which candidate weathered the most overtly racist attacks, in a midterm election full of the most overtly racist campaign attacks in modern memory, there was no contest.
Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, was called a “jihadist” by the president. Labeled a representative of “terrible evil” by the vice president. Smeared as an “extremist” by his Republican opponent. They all intentionally mispronounced his name as if it was a poison on the tongue that needed to be expelled.
But the hate offensive didn’t work. El-Sayed, 42, stepped up to the mic late Tuesday and delivered his victory speech as the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate.
“My name,” he said, pointedly using full, guttural Arabic pronunciation, “is Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.”
It was a clarifying moment for Muslims and for millions of others appalled by the normalization of bigotry handed down from the White House. There is an Allah, after all.
The son of Egyptian immigrants, El-Sayed prevailed over former Rep. Mike Rogers by seven percentage points in one of the most closely watched races of the midterms.
His victory was one among several historic wins scored by the Democrats as they elected more governors and flipped the House and Senate — including the triumphs of America’s first openly gay senator (Chris Pappas of New Hampshire) and first female Native American governor (Deb Haaland of New Mexico), as well as Texas’ first Latina governor (Gina Hinojosa).
But beyond the political implications, El-Sayed speaks for those of us who have been othered by our “foreign” heritage, the color of our skin, the food we eat, our accents or the way we pray.
He embodies what it means to face blistering attacks on your background and faith, and to come out the other side as more American in your ideals and resolve than your slur-slinging detractors.
If that sounds dramatic, so be it. It’s been a brutal decade for Muslims, Arabs or anyone associated with groups maligned, targeted or in many cases deported by the Trump administration. We needed this win to prove to ourselves, and perhaps the rest of the world, that this is not a nation dominated by narrow-minded exclusionists, despite what MAGA has wrought.
El-Sayed kept his cool on the campaign trail, sticking to Michelle Obama’s motto of “When they go low, we go high.” But he showed Tuesday how to have fun poking at the opposition with one hand while holding an olive branch in the other.
“Donald, I know you struggle with my name, so after JD swears me in in January, you can go on and call me Senator,” he said, rubbing in his victory while calling out President Trump for his brazen, Islamophobic rants.
The senator-elect also indirectly responded to JD Vance’s low blows against him and his campaign, which included the vice president calling him a “psychopath” and claiming he trafficked in “anti-white racial hatred.”
In doing so, El-Sayed addressed Vance with a widely used Arabic word meaning “my love.” Why? Because when deploying it against a detractor, it’s the equivalent of sarcastically calling them “sweetheart.”
“JD, habibi, there is this delicious irony in the fact that you’re constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January,” said El-Sayed before throwing a college sports rivalry barb at the Ohio native: “Wolverines 1, Buckeyes 0.”
And as he has always done publicly, El-Sayed openly embraced his Muslim faith while addressing the American people.
He reminded us of the times during his campaign when he said “inshallah” (or “God willing”) to describe his hopes for winning the seat.
“Today, tonight, we can turn that ‘inshallah’ into an ‘alhamdulillah,’” meaning “praise be to God.”
It wasn’t long ago when such words uttered by a Muslim might strike fear in Americans who interpreted them as the calling card of terrorists just before they pulled the pin, flipped the switch or lobbed the bomb (thanks, Hollywood). Now, those words are part of a future senator’s speech to the millions of Americans he’s vowed to represent.
El-Sayed may just be making Arabic halal for the masses. And as the midterm results show, we’re ready for it.
Voters sent a message to Washington rebuking MAGA’s war on DEI, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community. The Trump-era culture war against folks who look like El-Sayed has not quelled inflation, made housing cheaper, caused gas prices to drop or rendered health insurance affordable. But it may have helped us see each other again, as fellow citizens struggling to keep up.
“As I was campaigning, some of you would come up and ask, ‘How come you don’t hit back? How come you don’t call them racist or hateful?’” El-Sayed said during his victory speech. “They weren’t just attacking me. They were targeting and attacking you. They were targeting and attacking the very idea of America.”
It is about all of us, of course. But Muslim Americans who never thought they’d see the day are basking in El-Sayed’s win.
“We knew that the attacks on Abdul’s Muslim background were a big bull’s-eye for Rogers,” said Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. “What was heartening was to see it backfire.”
I’m not naive enough to think that the racist sentiment used by some Republicans to energize facets of their electorate is now a thing of the past. It’s always there. But you know what else is always there? People who choose progress instead of fear.
“Thank you. You took a chance on the unlikeliest of candidates,” El-Sayed said during his victory speech.
WASHINGTON — Control of Congress hangs in the balance as Americans head to the polls Tuesday to vote in a historic set of midterm elections that will determine how power is divided for the rest of President Trump’s time in office.
A robust turnout appeared possible, after months of polls suggesting voters’ frustration with cost-of-living issues may drive them to the polls. More than 59 million Americans had already cast ballots in early voting, according to the University of Florida Election Lab.
The campaign has largely been marked by Democrats’ unexpected traction in red states, resulting in Senate races that have been far more competitive than anticipated. Whether that translates into losses for Republicans could become a nail-biter Tuesday night.
Polling shows Democrats poised to make significant gains in the U.S. House and well-positioned for swing Senate races, but analysts say the Senate majority could go either way. Several gubernatorial seats are also open, and some contests have become unexpectedly close, including in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Florida.
Eyes will be on a handful of bellwether House races as the polls begin closing, with a Kentucky district expected to be the first to offer clues as to how good a night it may be for Democrats.
For weeks, the midterms have appeared poised to deliver a referendum on Trump’s second term and the state of the economy. Americans’ approval of the president has sunk to historic lows as they have cited concerns about affordability, corruption and immigration as driving factors for their votes.
On Monday and over the weekend, candidates made their final pushes to persuade voters.
Democrats, hoping to clench voter support for a “blue wave,” hammered home their arguments about affordability, corruption and the perceived toll of Trump’s governance, aiming to sway non-Democratic voters.
“This election is a battle between the powers that be and the powers that ought to be,” Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico of Texas said at a Sunday night rally. “We are standing with the powers that ought to be — the teachers and the nurses, the farmers and the ranchers, the grandmother who is facing eviction.”
Republicans, anticipating losses in the House, focused on delivering dire warnings to voters about Democratic candidates, whom they have portrayed throughout the campaign as extreme, dangerous and in some cases a threat to the American way of life.
“This race is about defending our state and our country, but it’s also about safeguarding our way of life,” Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican nominee for Senate, said Sunday. “Texas has never been this close to slipping away. We’ve never been this close to losing everything that we hold dear — our jobs, our livelihoods, our way of life.”
As voters cast ballots Tuesday, the Justice Department’s election monitors fanned out at polling sites across the country. Thousands of volunteers nationwide were also mobilized to be poll monitors, a backlash to the idea of potential federal election interference.
Trump sent out a flurry of last-minute social media endorsements for Republican congressional candidates and called in to the “Fox and Friends” show to make a final case. Democratic candidates dropped last-minute ads urging voters to head to the polls.
Palestinian Americans in the occupied West Bank are putting up US flags, razor wires and metal fences at their homes to fend off pogroms by Israeli settlers and soldiers.
WASHINGTON — Next week’s elections are widely seen as a referendum on President Trump, his team and his party, with most voters telling pollsters they seek a check on his power. But the midterms will also serve as a reckoning for one of the least productive sessions of Congress in a century.
A stunningly low 10% of Americans approve of the job performance of Congress, which has passed fewer bills and conducted less oversight than any of its predecessors in modern history, according to scholars of the legislative branch.
The biggest achievement of unified Republican control has also become one of its biggest liabilities. Deeply unpopular when signed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has only grown more controversial, with most Americans still unclear on what’s in it — and those who do know largely disapproving of the law, which cut taxes for businesses and billionaires while adding trillions to the national debt.
A summer Politico poll found that just 8% of Americans believe the law has improved their bottom line. The bill cut billions of dollars for food stamps and over a trillion in health programs and Medicaid.
Two other significant bills passed by this Congress — the Epstein Files Transparency Act and a housing reform package targeting corporate purchases of single-family homes — ultimately became law over Trump’s opposition, leaving Republicans little credit for bipartisan wins.
“It’s not a partisan statement to say that the current Congress will go down in history as one of the most ineffective in history,” said Charles Stewart III, director of the Election Data and Science Lab at MIT. “It may not be the most ineffective, but it’s down there.”
Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that congressional performance can be measured by several criteria, including the quantity and quality of legislation, its oversight of the executive branch, investigations of government and private-sector failures, and its defense of congressional powers and ethical standards.
By all accounts, he said, “the 119th Congress is an abysmal failure, perhaps the worst I have seen in well over five decades of immersion in the legislative branch.”
Senate pages walk through the halls outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol on Oct. 1, 2026. The Senate had completed its last votes in the middle of the night before going on recess through Nov. 9.
(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
A recent Fox News poll found that government corruption is voters’ top concern this year, surpassing even the economy. Yet the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to deliver meaningful oversight. The enrichment of Trump, his family, allies and aides has gone uninvestigated, while Senate Republicans continue to block legislation targeting insider trading by members of Congress.
It has been a running theme from Democrats working to unseat Republican incumbents, with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York — slated to become speaker of the House if Democrats win control of the chamber — repeatedly characterizing the current session as a “do-nothing” Congress.
Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola speaks at a campaign event Oct. 29, 2026, in Juneau, Alaska.
(Chloe Anderson / Associated Press)
In Alaska, Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate, accused her GOP opponent, Sen. Dan Sullivan, of doing nothing to stop Trump’s tariff policies or his war with Iran. Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio has attacked the Republican incumbent Jon Husted for his procedural attempts to end debate over legislation on the Epstein files. And Democrat Adam Hamilton has targeted Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas for voting for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that jeopardized funding to rural hospitals.
Defending the record of his majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has highlighted a decline in prescription drug prices, the elimination of “wasteful spending” on various federal programs and bipartisan housing reform. Only so much can be accomplished with a razor-thin majority in the chamber, Johnson has said.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) listens as U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) lends his support at a campaign rally on Oct. 29, 2026, in Platteville, Wis. Van Orden is in a rematch from 2024 with Democrat Rebecca Cooke for the state’s 3rd District seat.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
Trump has vowed on the campaign trail that, if kept in power, a Republican Congress would pass a $5,000 dividend to each American, despite its thin record to date.
Critics of the speaker say Johnson’s deference to Trump — and relinquishing of congressional authority to the executive branch — has unilaterally ceded power, souring voters on unified government.
But Stewart, who also co-directs a voting technology project with Caltech, said Congress’ problems run deeper than its current record.
Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) speaks during a campaign stop at the Palmetto State Armory on Oct. 30, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. Graham is running about even in the polls against her opponent, South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
“Not only is Congress not pushing back against the administration, or even innovating in policy, but its members also don’t seem especially interested in serving their constituents on the small-ball aspects of representation,” Stewart said.
“It’s hard to say members of this Congress are connecting with their constituents as they did in decades past,” he added. “We’ll see if that lack of constituency connection will have an impact on the results.”
How would the late Anthony Bourdain have responded to our political climate in the United States with less than a week before the midterm elections of Donald Trump’s second term?
This speculative thought bubble emerged for me as I watched the last of two Los Angeles episodes Bourdain did through 12 seasons of his CNN food and travel series “Parts Unknown.” It aired just over a year before his death by suicide in France on June 8, 2018.
Set in our Pacific immigrant metropolis, the program predicts Season 2 of Trumpism, if you will. In another way, Bourdain’s ode to L.A. suggests a framework on how to think about the state of our nation as we head to the polls on Tuesday.
The universal glee of getting tacos
Customers line up at Ave 26 Tacos stand in a parking lot next to the Little Tokyo Galleria in 2024.
(Silvia Razgova)
Picture the moment when a taquero hands you a warm paper plate heaping with warm tortillas and meats on a street in Los Angeles. Do you also get that giddy, kid-like feeling for half a second? There’s nothing like it, right?
Halfway through the Season 9 opener of “Parts Unknown,” Bourdain experiences just that. In a moment you might miss without looking closely, that familiar look flashes on his face, an unbridled glee, as a taquero in downtown L.A. hands him tacos. In that moment he’s not some mythical man known to his best friends as “Tony.” He’s just a guy getting tacos. It’s super cute.
I came upon this episode recently, and it struck me as potently relevant for today, just before the midterm elections. Bourdain’s taco happiness reminded me that even when some sectors of U.S. society are calling for an effective de-browning of this country, everyone everywhere still really loves Mexican food.
Daniel Hernandez digs into the stickiest questions around food and culture in Los Angeles and the California borderlands.
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It’s worth pointing out that I’m not a Bourdain superfan. I’ve not seen every episode of TV he made. I didn’t read “Kitchen Confidential” until this year. But lately I’ve been studying him. In the past month I finally watched the biopic “Tony” about his coming of age, and I’ve started reading the entertaining memoir “Care and Feeding” by Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s former long-term assistant and co-author.
I’m catching up on Bourdain because I’ve noticed that as we pass eight years since his death, the author’s cultural influence upon chefs, cooks and food lovers in general does not seem to be waning. It might even be growing.
“He taught me that being a rebel lets you enjoy life,” said Evil Cooks chef and co-owner Alex Garcia, who has an image of Anthony Bourdain tattooed on his leg.
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
A multitude of chefs or cooks in L.A. have a depiction of Bourdain hanging somewhere in their restaurants, kitchens or homes. Some even on their skin. At least six portraits of Bourdain are on display along the black-clad walls of restaurant Evil Cooks in El Sereno, for example. Chef Alex Garcia has a Bourdain tattoo on his lower leg.
“I love Anthony Bourdain for his rebellious way of being, but also for his love for Mexicanos because he worked for many years with people from Puebla,” Garcia told me after I had dinner there Tuesday night. “He taught me that being a rebel lets you enjoy life, because the end of the day, being yourself, being happy, is the purpose of this journey that we call life.”
This enduring passion for Bourdain also springs from what so much of his television and writing do: Demonstrate an unflagging empathy for almost anyone he met anywhere in the world. Well, almost anyone — he said pretty clearly he’d never share a meal with Donald Trump.
His 2017 episode “Los Angeles” (currently streaming on HBO Max) proves it more than most. It was filmed in 2016, just before the election that took Trump to the White House. It is worth a rewatch before you cast your ballot anywhere.
The program delves into cultural identity, racism, police abuse and corruption and gentrification. Its whole thesis points to the fallacy of being anti-immigrant or anti-Mexican in 21st century America. “Los Angeles, like much of California, used to be part of Mexico,” Bourdain says in the intro. “Now, Mexico, or a whole lot of Mexicans, are a vital part of … us.”
“This show will air long after the election,” Bourdain tells Hinojosa-Ojeda at Gish Bac. “There is actually a national conversation now, unthinkable in my lifetime, where the notion of rounding up however many millions of undocumented workers in this country all at once … and then kicking them out. I mean, it seems unthinkable. But, you know, they said that in Europe in the ‘30s.”
In his characteristic tone, grumpy yet hopeful, Bourdain showed he believed in a shared human dignity that superceded all ethnic, national, religious or ideological boundaries.
Listening to him, the prospect of total MAGA Republican rule in all branches of government becomes something like a nightmare that we’ve seen play out in real life. It is a long list of gross constitutional violations targeting immigrants and brown-skinned people, and their supporters like slain U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti of Minneapolis, on a daily basis in this country.
People gather at a memorial for Alex Pretti and Renée Good, both shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
(Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
Loving immigrants
On Tuesday, voters nationwide are expected to be thinking first of their pocketbooks and of corruption in Washington when they vote. On another level, this election along with the 2016 and 2024 results are also about litigating by the ballot box what it means to “be” an American.
Sandra Zweig, one of the executive producers on the show, told me Bourdain set out to highlight Latino Los Angeles from the very beginning in 2016. In March of that year, she recalled in an interview, he sent producers the initial list of the cities he was thinking of for Season 9, to start the production conversation.
From that first brainstorming session, Zweig found these notes about a second episode in L.A.: “All-Mexico edition.”
“This time we pretend nobody lives in L.A. who isn’t Latino,” the notes continued. “We live, play in that world without leaving it, we will explore Mexican and Central American immigration, how vital this population is to the SoCal economy.”
Those notes show Bourdain wanted to avoid a recycling of the pastoral mainstream modern narrative on L.A., which isn’t inaccurate but can sometimes feel stale: hyping its multicultural, polycentric, polyethnic etcetera identity. No. This time would be all brown.
“He worked in kitchens and restaurants for so long, he knew as well as anyone that a huge portion of that work staff were immigrants from Mexico and Central America,” Zweig told me. “He also knew that being an immigrant wasn’t a bad thing, to use the word pejoratively was just anathema to him.”
Pop figures like Bourdain and Trejo, despite his recent stumble (he was cast in a film by alt-right extremist Ben Shapiro’s film company), have arguably done a lot more to shape Americans’ perceptions of immigrants and Mexicans than any political leader.
“He would always say, ‘Travel allows you to see people, where they live, and understand where they’re coming from, and reducing that fear for the other.’ For the audience, you’re opening up a world that they may not be able to travel to yourself,” Zweig said. “In 2016, there were things being said about immigrants and immigration that he felt strongly about, and this was one way to discuss that.”
Zweig added: “I can’t predict exactly what he’d say, but it’s clear to me that’d be appalled by the whole sort of immigration enforcement and ICE tactics that’s happening now. That’s not a leap to assume that.”
When I look at the audacity and cruelty of the MAGA right’s stance on immigration, the killings of citizens and immigrants at the hands of ICE agents, I always turn back and remind myself how out-of-step with the nation it is to be anti-immigrant.
Alfonso Lira, 61, a dishwasher and busser from Michoacan, Mexico, sweeps the entrance at Chapter One restaurant in downtown Santa Ana during a double shift in 2024.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Gallup polling is a reliable benchmark on weighing Americans’ views on immigration. At its highest point just last year, the trend line showed 79% of Americans believe immigration is a good thing overall to the country by far. Currently that figure is 73%. Only 21% of Americans believe immigration is a bad thing, its second lowest point since 2002.
Polls and sentiments vary widely from there on how to reform and manage the immigration system — although certainly most people in the U.S. are against current ICE raids, roughly by 2-to-1 — but the basic truth is sitting there before us: The country loves and appreciates immigrants. For most of us, it’s always been about welcoming the stranger, honoring hard work, and contributing to the pursuit of social harmony.
Most of us believe anyone can join the party. There just has to be a better process for it. Political leaders therefore must offer a clear plan not for “mass deportations” but for normalizing people who are here and contributing to society, the economy and the tax base. And more than anything, offer as many people as possible a pathway to citizenship.
If anyone ever tells you they are opposed to any version of this notion, remind them that they are in the minority. Americans favor immigrants by 7-out-of-10, Gallup says. And remind them that as his last love letter to L.A. shows, Anthony Bourdain would have tried to snap them out of it if he’d ever gotten the chance.
WASHINGTON — President Clinton famously said he could feel voters’ pain over the economy. But these days, when it comes to questions about high prices, President Trump insists that the pain is his.
“They hit me with affordability, and that’s the first time I ever heard the word used,” he complained in Nebraska earlier this month.
The White House leaves Vice President JD Vance to use a softer touch. Last month in Texas, he admitted “there are people out there who are frustrated by the pace of progress.” And during a CBS News town hall on Saturday, Vance said, “I recognize that gas prices are too high right now” and “we’re working on it.”
Depending on which Republican is speaking, Americans are getting a different perspective on how bad things are with the economy. Trump says “the golden age of America is upon us.” Vance walks a tightrope to show that he knows voters are feeling an economic pinch while still selling them on Trump’s agenda.
The disconnect comes as Americans’ confidence in the economy sank to the lowest level in more than a decade this month, the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate jumped this month to its highest level in nearly three years and the unemployment rate ticked up last month.
Recent economic data released this month shows that high gasoline prices are intensifying inflation and more expensive oil and gas have begun to push prices up in other parts of the economy.
While most of Trump’s supporters don’t hold him at fault, some acknowledge that the president’s penchant for salesmanship may not hit the mark.
“I think he talks it up,” said Conda Little, a 76-year-old retiree who went to see Trump in Dalton, Ga., on Friday. “I think Vance is more real.”
Little takes the president at his word that he will achieve a victory over Iran in a way that benefits U.S. consumers back home. But she said it’s impossible to deny the fallout from the conflict.
“Everybody’s real upset about the gas” and “groceries are out of sight,” she said. “It’s hard. It’s really hard,” she said, adding that, “I think that people need to hear the truth.”
‘We need to do more’
Trump is loath to acknowledge concerns. He told reporters earlier this month that he gives himself “an A+ on the government, on economics, on everything.” He has dismissed concerns about high costs, arguing that concerns about affordability are a “hoax.”
“We’re in the golden age of America. So our nation is doing better now than ever before,” he told a crowd in Kentucky on Saturday while campaigning for Republican candidates.
Trump has occasionally acknowledged that gas prices are high, but has called it “a small price to pay” for keeping the country and the world safe with the Iran war.
Trump’s discordant message with one of the top concerns voters are voicing ahead of the midterm elections has seemed heightened by his fixation on beautifying Washington and building a large ballroom at the White House.
During a visit this month to an economically struggling corner of Arizona, he regaled the crowd with the story about how he ended up with a luxury jet gifted by Qatar to use as Air Force One.
Vance, as he crisscrosses the country, is quick to say that the administration has more work to do.
To cast blame, the vice president often says that his administration’s Democratic predecessors put the country in such a deep hole that they need more time to climb out.
To show empathy, he often references his own experience growing up in a working-class family in a Rust Belt town. That’s far different from Trump, who comes from a wealthy family, is a billionaire and even joked during his speeches on Friday and Saturday that if people have lunch at his Mar-a-Lago club, “for $5,000, you’ll get one hamburger and a small dessert.”
Vance, during a CBS News town hall that aired on Saturday, said: “I grew up in a working-class family. When gas prices were high, I know that it made my grandmother suffer, and I’m sure that you’re struggling with it in a variety of ways.”
When asked by the moderator about the mixed message he and Trump are giving on the economy, Vance said Trump was speaking about new investments coming into the country, but said the changes take time.
“We need to do more, and we can certainly do better,” he acknowledged.
Many Trump supporters trust his pitch
Some voters said Trump’s rosy view on the economy turns them away, like Santiago Rodriguez, a 19-year-old Texas college student who will be voting for the first time this year.
Rodriguez, who attended a campaign rally last week for Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, said he would consider voting for a Republican but not while Trump is in charge because he doesn’t grasp the high cost of living for Americans.
“I think he’s out of touch, I think he’s never seen what a true day as a Texan or anybody in general who is in the working class,” Rodriguez said.
Trump’s most loyal supporters aren’t interested in blaming high prices on anything the president has done.
Cindy Massengill, a 67-year-old who came to see Trump in Dalton, Ga., said she felt he’s doing the best he can.
“I’m positive that he’s got done more than any other president after the mess we were left with Obama and Biden,” she said.
Mary Bunker, a 67-year-old Republican who attended Trump’s Monday rally near Wichita, Kan., said she works multiple jobs, including as a waitress and DoorDash driver.
She feels the pressure of high gas prices, but she likes the tax breaks that Trump signed into law last year and she doesn’t fault the way he speaks about economic concerns.
“I think he’s a very good businessman,” Bunker said. “He’s been in business a long time, so I think he knows what he’s talking about.”
Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Bill Barrow in Dalton, Ga., Jesse Bedayn in San Marcos, Texas, and Nicholas Ingram in Park City, Kan., contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — President Trump bypassed his White House chief of staff last week in selecting Katie Zacharia as his press secretary and chief messenger, triggering days of scathing headlines about her credentials and abilities before her ignominious resignation on Friday.
Susie Wiles, that senior-most aide ostensibly in charge of the president’s team, is facing his scrutiny over a different set of problems: widespread public anxiety over corruption in government under the Trump administration. The issue has surpassed the economy as the top concern of voters entering next month’s election, according a Fox News poll released this week.
Marco Rubio, the president’s secretary of State and national security advisor, has been silent on Trump’s decision to cut a deal with Moscow on diesel sales that could fuel Russia’s war against Ukraine. The president’s poll numbers have been below water across the board, but especially so on foreign policy, where over two-thirds of Americans disapprove of his job performance and support Kyiv’s fight for freedom.
Trump aides walk to board Air Force One on Tuesday: Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, left; Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations (in sunglasses); Chief of Staff Susie Wiles; and then-Press Secretary Katie Zacharia.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
And on Thursday, the president was forced to reverse a course set out by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon to live-stream the execution of a convicted mass shooter by firing squad.
In the final stretch of the 2026 midterms, nearly two weeks out from election day, a White House that has enjoyed relative stability over the past two years has returned to the state of disarray that characterized much of Trump’s early political career, anticipating sweeping losses to Democrats in the House and Senate.
Staff upheaval is expected as officials brace for a blame game over Republican performance, with some distancing themselves from what they see as a fading political movement.
Polls suggest that Republicans are likely to lose control of the House, setting up two years of relentless congressional probes through the twilight of the Trump era, and that Democrats could even flip the Senate, winning in ruby red states from Ohio to Alaska.
It is historically a time for closing arguments, when politicians deliver their final pitches to voters in neat, disciplined packages.
Yet Trump’s campaign blitz across the country in recent weeks has generated a muddled message, dismissing the importance of the election itself at the risk of depressing Republican votes, overshadowing local candidates seeking distance from his record and touting an economy unrecognizable to most Americans.
President Trump walks ahead of Katie Zacharia at the White House.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
The president’s selection of Zacharia, who lasted just five days on the job, raised fresh questions about his message discipline in the final stretch.
And infighting within the White House has reinforced a narrative among political pundits that Democratic gains are a fait accompli, despite Zacharia, in her first and only press briefing, foretelling of Republican energy and excitement “never seen before in the history of midterms thanks to President Trump.”
Election officials across the country fear that, anticipating inevitable losses, Trump may be laying the ground to challenge the authenticity of the election results themselves.
“You know, this is the only guy that — it’s ‘promises made, promises kept,’ but he did more things than he promised,” Trump said Thursday, referring to himself in the third person. “I think we did. We did much more than we promised.”
The extent of the coming West Wing shakeup could be extensive, reaching into a Cabinet that has had far less turnover than Trump experienced in his first term.
Zacharia is the second senior official forced out by Trump in just three days, after Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former fiancée of one of Trump’s sons who served as U.S. ambassador to Greece, was revealed by the Wall Street Journal to have asked a Trump donor to pay off her $100,000 credit card bill.
Now, the president has begun asking political allies and donors about Wiles’ job performance, according to a recent Politico report, and several top administration officials are vying for her role, anticipating her resignation after the elections next month.
The conclusion of the midterms will also kick off the start of the 2028 presidential election season, when Republican hopefuls — including many from Trump’s Cabinet — are expected to launch exploratory committees.
British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stand for anthems at the Pentagon on Thursday.
(Finn Gomez / Getty Images)
“We have to get through the midterms first,” Trump said at the end of August, asked about Hegseth reportedly considering a run. “I bet there’s a lot of people considering it that you don’t know about. You have a lot of people.”
The party of incumbent presidents regularly loses seats in midterm elections, and it is common for presidents to shake up their staffs halfway through a term.
But the last time a term-limited Republican president faced voters in midterm elections, in 2006, Democrats swept into power in both houses of Congress — and President George W. Bush’s political capital never recovered.
That year, 37% of voters said they approved of Bush’s job performance. Polls published this month by AP and Reuters have found Trump already below that threshold.
In the GOP presidential primaries that followed, candidates jockeying to replace Bush distanced themselves from his legacy. He ultimately left office with an approval rating of 25%.
A century and a half after Chinese came to California, one in four Americans hold “very negative attitudes” toward Americans of Chinese ancestry, and a third question their loyalty to the United States, according to a nationwide poll scheduled for release today in Washington.
The survey of public attitudes toward Chinese Americans also found that, while an overwhelming majority of Americans admire Chinese Americans for their devotion to family, emphasis on education and diligence, nearly a quarter would not approve of marriage to a Chinese American.
Twenty-three percent of Americans said they are uncomfortable with the idea of voting for an Asian American candidate for president, compared to 15% for an African American, 14% for a woman and 11% for a Jew.
Thirty-four percent said Chinese Americans have too much influence in the U.S. technology sector. Virtually the same proportion said Chinese Americans are more loyal to China than to the United States.
Those findings would appear to reflect the residue of the federal prosecution of U.S. nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of transferring nuclear weapons data to unsecured computers on behalf of China.
The poll results, coming at a time of renewed tension between the U.S. and Chinese governments, disheartened experts who have long believed that the American public’s perception of Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans is disproportionately affected by the tone of diplomatic relations. Those experts felt that some of the responses showed that Americans are woefully ignorant about Asian Americans, even in California, where an estimated 40% of the nation’s Asian Americans live.
“We find these findings startling,” said Henry S. Tang, chairman of the Committee of 100, the Chinese American leadership organization that sponsored the telephone survey of 1,216 Americans. The group’s better-known members include cellist Yo-Yo Ma and architect I.M. Pei. “It makes you wonder how not only Chinese Americans, but Asian Americans, can shake this legacy of somehow being less than 100% Americans,” said UCLA political scientist Don T. Nakanishi, director of the Asian American Studies Center.
After a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet along the coast of southeast China earlier this month, a rash of talk show hosts and radio personalities called for the internment of people of Chinese ancestry. Some even urged a boycott of Chinese restaurants and made fun of Asian accents.
The release of the survey today at the National Press Club is coordinated with the committee’s 10th annual conference during which several panels will discuss the implications of the poll.
The telephone survey, conducted March 1-14 by Yankelovich Partners in consultation with the Anti-Defamation League and the Marttila Communications Group, has a margin of sampling error of 3.1 percentage points.
The main thrust of the study was to probe the public’s attitudes toward Chinese Americans. The survey also tried find out whether attitudes toward Chinese Americans were largely the same or different from those toward Asian Americans in general. It asked 1,002 respondentstheir opinions about stereotypes of Chinese Americans; 214 were asked about identically worded stereotypes of Asian Americans, according to the study. The answers were nearly identical, suggesting that prejudice against Chinese Americans is a subset of broader prejudices against Asian Americans, the researchers said.
Asians Americans were second only to African Americans as undesirable marriage partners. A third of respondents said they disapproved of marrying blacks, compared to 24% for Asians, 21% for Latinos and 16% for Jews.
As for housing, Americans preferred to be neighbors of Asians rather than blacks and Latinos. Seventeen percent of the respondents said they would be upset if an Asian moved into their neighborhood, compared to 21% for Latinos, 19% for blacks and 9% for Jews.
Asian Americans are often told that they excel in technical skills, but lack leadership qualities because they tend not to be assertive.
The poll found that 7% of Americans would not want an Asian American chief executive for a Fortune 500 company, compared to 4% who would not want an African American, 3% a woman and 4% a Jew. And the highest percentage of those surveyed objected to having an Asian American supervisor–6%, compared to 3% to 4% for the other groups.
“What’s disheartening about all of this is these negative views will continue because they are so tied to the things that really relate to our future–high technology, trade, U.S.-China relations,” said political scientist Nakanishi.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
On Chinese Americans
A telephone survey of 1,216 Americans age 18 and older conducted March 1-14 asked about views of Asian Ameri-cans and Chinese Americans.
*
Attitudes toward Chinese Americans
Very negative: 25%
Positive: 32%
Somewhat negative: 43%
*
Positive sentiment toward Chinese Americans (% who said “probably true”)
Have strong family values: 91%
Are as honest as other businessmen: 77%
Are as patriotic as other Americans: 68%
Place a higher value on education than do most other groups in America: 67%
Have contributed much to the cultural life of America: 56%
*
Negative sentiment toward Chinese Americans (% who said “probably true”)
Have too much influence in the U.S. high-technology sector: 34%
Always like to be at the head of things: 32%
Are more loyal to China than to the U.S.: 32%
Hard to get close to, make friends with: 28%
Taking away too many jobs from Americans: 24%
*
Note: Margin of error plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
