Poll of Early 2028 Primary States Finds Democratic Voters Want Arms Embargo on Israel

A new poll of Democratic voters in the states that will open the 2028 presidential primary calendar found that most respondents want the party's next nominee to support an arms embargo and sanctions against Israel, according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU).

The survey, reported by The Lever, covered more than 4,000 people across South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, Michigan, New Mexico, and Virginia, the states set to hold the earliest 2028 primary contests. The Lever did not publish the poll's underlying data, crosstabs, or methodology, and Occupation Watch has not independently reviewed them.

Democrats "overwhelmingly" want the party's next presidential nominee to back an arms embargo and sanctions against Israel, the poll found.

According to the reported results, more than half of Democrats surveyed in each of the six states said Israel is committing a genocide, a characterization that remains a matter of international legal dispute but has hardened into majority opinion among the party's base by this measure. In five of the six states, more than 50 percent of respondents said a 2028 candidate's position on Israel would directly affect their vote. South Carolina registered the lowest figure, at 46 percent, still nearly half the electorate.

What the numbers would mean

If the IMEU figures hold up under scrutiny, they describe a primary electorate willing to make U.S. military aid to Israel a threshold issue for the next Democratic nominee, in states that have historically rewarded candidates who avoided the subject entirely. South Carolina and Nevada helped decide the last two competitive Democratic primaries. A candidate field built around 2020-era assumptions about Israel policy would be running against a base that, per this survey, now wants embargo and sanctions positions on the table from the start.

IMEU is an advocacy and research organization that has published polling on U.S. attitudes toward Israel and Palestine before; it is not a neutral pollster in the mold of Gallup or Pew, and The Lever's writeup does not disclose sample weighting, question wording, or margin of error. Those gaps matter for a figure as large as "overwhelmingly." The topline claims, however, track a broader and separately documented trend: falling Democratic support for unconditional military aid to Israel in surveys from Gallup, Pew, and other outlets over the past two years.

No campaign, party committee, or elected official has yet responded publicly to the IMEU findings. Occupation Watch will update this record if the underlying poll data, or responses from 2028 hopefuls, become available.