Donald Trump has been crowned the ‘Peace President’ by American voters after brokering a historic Middle East deal that secured the release of Israeli hostages and negotiated a delicate ceasefire between bitter enemies. Trump promised a ‘new dawn’ and the ‘end of an age of terror and death’ as his 20-point peace plan was signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to mark the end of the two-year Gaza war .
The accord has reunited families torn apart by the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack and is being hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs in decades, even as questions linger over how long the truce will last. A new Daily Mail/JL Partners poll shows that voters at home are giving Trump the credit – and see him as the architect of a lasting peace where others failed. When asked which president had done the most for the Middle East, Trump received more votes than his four White House predecessors combined.
Voters also gave Trump a 51 percent approval rating, a drop from the astonishing 55 percent in a Daily Mail poll from September. However, his personal favorability has shot up to 47 percent from 44 percent in July. Voters also said the Middle East was the most successful issue Trump has dealt with, with immigration second.
Hamas has already been accused of violating Trump’s peace agreement by refusing to surrender the bodies of hostages and engaging in violent clashes with rival Palestinian factions as Israeli troops pull back. Footage emerging from Gaza appears to show the terror group executing fellow Palestinians, prompting threats of a military response from Trump himself.
Despite that uncertainty, when asked which president had done the most for the Middle East, Trump received more votes than his four White House predecessors combined, in the Daily Mail/JL Partners poll. The results also suggest that a majority in the United States believes Trump’s role in stopping the fighting will be one of the crowning moments of his presidency. ‘Trump is the Peace President,’ James Johnson, JL Partners co-founder, told the Daily Mail. ‘That’s the verdict of the American public who give him the title of the living president to have done most for peace in the Middle East.’
‘And though Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, voters overwhelmingly think that Trump has done more for peace than Obama,’ Johnson added. ‘Trump might not have the Nobel Peace Prize yet, but America has spoken: they believe he is the Peace President.’ Fifty-five percent of voters believe Trump has handled peace in the Middle East ‘well’ – more than double who said he was handling it ‘badly’ (24 percent), according to the survey.
Additionally, 28 percent said that Trump did ‘a lot’ better than expected in pushing for peace in the Middle East, while another 24 percent said he did somewhat better than expected. Even a third of Democrats – 33 percent – praised his performance as exceeding their expectations. When voters were asked to name a president who has done the most for peace in the Middle East, 38 percent said the current commander-in-chief.
Another 16 percent said Obama, while 7 percent each said Joe Biden, as well as fellow Democratic president Bill Clinton. Only 4 percent credited Republican president George W Bush. Another 27 percent of respondents answered that they were unsure. When Trump’s legacy was compared against Obama’s and then Biden’s, he beat both Democrats easily.
When respondents were asked to choose between Trump and Obama, 48 percent said Trump and 35 percent said Obama, a previous recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. The president fared even better against Biden, who was president during the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel, which left at least 1,219 people dead. Biden bartered for 24 hostages to be released over Thanksgiving that year – but negotiations for a further ceasefire between Hamas and Israel never took hold, despite the Democrat pushing for a plan similar to Trump’s near the end of his term.
On Monday, however, Trump arrived in Israel as the final 20 Israeli hostages were released, a product of his 20-point plan to achieve peace in Gaza, with hopes that the demolished Palestinian territory could eventually be rebuilt. The poll showed that 51 percent of voters credited Trump with doing more for Middle East peace, while 25 percent credited Biden. The Trump administration saw a slight uptick in how voters feel about how the president is representing the US on the world stage, with more saying ‘good’ for the first time.
The latest survey found that 44 percent said the administration is good for the US on the world stage, while 43 percent said it represented the US badly, a more divided result. In June, those numbers were 42 percent who said good and 50 percent who rated the Trump administration badly, and in April, just 38 percent rated the Trump administration well, while 54 percent – a majority – said badly. Trump held a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday and will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House Friday, indicating the Ukraine war is his next major conflict he plans to tackle.
The poll consisted of 1,004 registered voters and was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, in the aftermath of Trump’s whirlwind trip to Egypt and Israel. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percent. Mark Bednar, a Republican strategist, told the Daily Mail that the American people believed Trump to be the ‘President of Peace and an overall foreign policy savant.’ ‘He’s shown time and time again that he’s willing to think outside of the box, bring people together, and get outcomes that result in a stronger America and a safer world,’ Bednar said. ‘He thrives on momentum so it’s exciting to see where this win will take the country.’
