Counter/Consensus: Israel's wobbly government, U.S. tariff sentiment, and Lula's low approval in Brazil

1. Israel (Counter)

Politics by other means. Bloomberg wrote last week that “Netanyahu and his ruling coalition have lost ground in polls since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and subsequent war in Gaza.” While his ruling coalition is on the ropes due to the culmination of a fight with the ultra-Orthodox Haredi over conscription, our daily tracking data shows that Netanyahu has actually gained ground with the public since the attacks.  

Miraculously, as we have noted previously, Netanyahu managed to bounce back from a net approval rating in the -40’s after the terrorist attack, which was largely seen as an intelligence failure, to sit closer to -20 after he successfully took the fight to Lebanese Hezbollah in late 2024. And while his approval began to dip again this April, it is still well above where it sat on Oct. 7 when Hamas initiated the current conflict.  

Netanyahu’s term is set to end in October 2026, but few Israeli governments manage to complete their full terms. If an election were to be held soon, Netanyahu would have a tough time winning it despite his personal political resurrection. While public optimism about a given country’s trajectory and approval of the incumbent chief executive often track closely in our data, in Israel there is a noteworthy divergence: While Netanyahu's approval is up moderately relative to the pre-conflict period and the window just after it began, the share of Israelis who say their country is headed in the right direction has barely budged, and remains at a highly depressed level of -50.

Assuming another term is not in the cards for Netanyahu, his successor will almost certainly be right of center. Israel is not regularly tracked on our Political Polarization Rankings, but if it were, it would be the second most polarized country, and the most right-leaning: Over 25% of Israelis identified as far right in May 2025. While right-wing parties already dominated the political spectrum before Oct. 7, since that attack Israel has shifted even further right (second chart below).

One potential challenger from the right is former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who has signaled he may run again. But any right-wing challenger to Netanyahu’s Likud party would need to form a coalition with either the center-left or the ultra-Orthodox right. The ongoing war in Gaza makes either option difficult. With the Haredim, the difficulty stems from growing public resentment at their exemption from military service even as reservists are called up multiple times. With the center-left Golan, criticism of human rights violations in Gaza may harm its prospects among the increasingly right-wing electorate. Betting against a political survivor like Benjamin Netanyahu is always risky, but the Israeli commentariat is starting to put its chips down on his early departure.

2. United States (Counter)

Never gonna give you up. The U.S. administration’s insistence on wielding massive tariffs against allies and adversaries alike is increasingly at odds with U.S. public opinion. When we ask U.S. voters each week what should be the Trump administration’s top priority versus what is a top priority for it, tariff policy consistently shows the largest gap between the two. Half of U.S. voters say imposing tariffs is a top administration priority, while only 22% say it should be. 

U.S. consumers’ overall support for tariffs has steadily declined since December, with declines largest among Democrats and independent voters (see the inaugural edition of our monthly U.S. Tariff Sentiment Tracker for the latest data among U.S. adults). Republicans are still relatively stalwart supporters of tariffs, making them a more risky domestic demographic for consumer-facing companies, but the fact remains that the average American now holds a negative view of tariffs. 

As we noted in the June 10 edition of our twice weekly U.S. politics newsletter (you can sign up for free here), the same holds for most individual tariff packages we ask about, including 30% tariffs on China, 25% tariffs on automobiles and parts, and 50% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The sole exception is the administration’s 10% universal tariffs, which see slightly larger shares approve than disapprove of them (46% to 43%). And as we noted in last week’s quarterly update of our U.S.-China Relations Tracker, even Republicans are beginning to sour on threats of additional tariffs targeting China specifically.

In spite of the ruling by a federal judicial panel on May 28 that the “reciprocal” tariffs imposed using emergency powers were illegal, the U.S. administration has not shown signs of abandoning tariffs as a tool. Two days later, the administration doubled its tariffs on steel and aluminum — which were imposed under a different legal framework — to 50%. On June 1, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick maintained that the reciprocal tariffs were “not going away” and reiterated the end of the 90-day pause would proceed as planned at the start of July (with the courts now allowing the tariffs to remain in place until at least July 31). This is partly showmanship to encourage countries to continue to play ball with the United States in negotiating new deals, but it also shows that the administration is not viewing the ruling as game over, even if many Americans wish that it would.

3. Brazil (Counter)

Tudo bem? In recent months, Brazilian President Lula’s shaky approval rating has garnered substantial press attention, with a relatively steep decline from 2024 onwards attributed to a combination of economic malaise, a recent corruption scandal, and most damningly, a lack of clear policy vision emanating from Lula himself. To Lula’s detriment, our data suggests the latter explanation may hold the most water. Per our daily tracking of Lula’s approval rating among Brazilian adults (specifically weighted to the literate population) since the start of his current administration, Lula’s approval has indeed worsened over 2024-2025, with net approval crossing into negative territory early in 2024.

During this year-and-a-half window, Brazil saw a relatively substantial decline in consumer sentiment, per Morning Consult’s Brazil Index of Consumer Confidence. But Lula’s approval similarly declined over 2023 when our consumer confidence index was more buoyant, suggesting economic malaise cannot clearly explain the relatively consistent downtrend in approval we observe from 2023 onwards.

Similarly, while Lula’s approval rating is currently hovering near a tracking low, we see little evidence of a major blip surrounding the May 2025 corruption scandal. The same is true when we disaggregate Lula’s disapproval shares into their components (comprised of those who “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove of him), suggesting that while the corruption scandal may have pinned Lula’s current approval rating in an unenviable position, it was not clearly responsible for aggravating it.

Brazil’s next presidential election isn’t due until October 2026. But the slow and steady nature of Lula’s worsening approval metrics suggests it will be difficult to right the ship relative to a scenario where event-based drivers were readily apparent in our data and could be addressed and remedied by the administration. The Workers’ Party (PT) that Lula hails from meanwhile shows some striking parallels to the Democratic Party during the 2024 U.S. elections that highlight additional risks on the horizon, including an aging contender expected at the top of the PT ticket (Fernando Haddad) and a weak digital communications strategy. We think it’s too early to rule definitively on Lula’s prospects in 2026 and those of the PT more broadly, but we tend to agree with recent reporting that there are no easy fixes. 

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