Itongadol.-Israelis are almost evenly split on whether Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump is better for Israel, a poll that was conducted for the 102 FM Tel Aviv Radio station by the Maagar Mochot research institute found.
When asked which candidate will better serve Israel’s interests, 34% of the respondents chose Trump and 29% Clinton. The margin of error for the poll is 4.5%, meaning the two are nearly in a statistical tie. However, the most popular response was “I don’t know,” with 37%.
Jewish Israelis’ responses were even more evenly divided, with 49% of those with an opinion choosing Clinton and 51% choosing Trump, but Arab Israelis were almost three times more likely to say that Trump (74%) is looking out for Israel than Clinton (26%).
Asked about media bias, 34% of Israelis said the local media favors Clinton, 21% it was more pro-Trump, 21% said it treated them equally, while 24% did not know. Israeli Arabs were more likely to say the press favors Clinton (66%) over Trump (15%), than Jews, of which 40% said the media favors Clinton and 30% said it has a bias towards Trump.
The poll was conducted on October 20, the day after the two candidates had their third debate. Maagar Mochot polled their online panel of 503 respondents, a representative sample of Israeli adults.