Poll finds Jewish voters dislike president, plan to vote Democratic
Jewish voters overwhelmingly disapprove of President Donald Trump, approve of former President Barack Obama and plan to vote Democratic in the 2018 midterm elections.
The findings come from a nationwide poll of Jewish voters released Wednesday.
More than three-quarters hold an unfavorable view of Trump — the mirror image of how American Jews view Obama, who is seen favorably by more than seven in 10 voters.
The poll of Jewish voters was conducted by a Democratic pollster for a new nonprofit organization focused on the Jewish electorate and turning out Jewish voters.
Midterms
The poll found Jewish voters overwhelmingly plan to vote for Democrats
for Congress this year — 74 percent for a Democratic candidate and 26 percent for a Republican.
That is a net Democratic advantage of 48 percentage points for Democrats among Jewish voters and far more Democratic than the overall electorate.
The RealClearPolitics average of congressional ballot tests shows voters favoring the Democrats 48 percent to 41 percent, a net advantage of 7 points for the Democrats and philanthropists.
Trump
The Trump numbers among Jewish voters: 23 percent favorable; 76 percent unfavorable.
That’s a negative 53 points among Jewish voters — far more negative than the overall electorate.
The RealClearPolitics average of national polls shows 42 percent of voters have a favorable view of Trump and 54 percent have an unfavorable view. Among all voters, Trump is 12 points underwater.
By comparison, Obama was rated favorably by 72 percent and unfavorably by 28 percent of Jewish voters. There isn’t comparable national polling for the former president.
Trump is rated negatively on the way he’s handled many issues, including taxes, immigration, Supreme Court nominations, gun safety, the environment and health care.
The most positive issue area was his handling of U.S.-Israel relations, where 51 percent approved and 49 percent disapproved.
Jewish voters’ intentions in 2020 mirror their view of their president and their votes in 2016.
The poll found 74 percent said they would vote for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 and 26 percent would vote for Trump.
Exit polls found that 71 percent of Jewish voters went for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and 23 percent voted for Trump. Another 6 percent cited someone else or didn’t answer.
Democratic voting bloc
Jewish voters long have been an important and loyal voting bloc supporting Democratic candidates, and Wednesday’s survey indicates that isn’t changing in 2016.
During presidential elections, there’s always an intense campaign to sway Jewish voters, with Republicans asserting they’re about to make major inroads. But that hasn’t happened.
Ira Sheskin, professor of geography at the University of Miami and director of the Jewish Demography Project, said in a recent interview that Jewish voters strongly identify with one party. “They vote Democratic,” he said.
The poll found 68 percent of Jewish voters identified as Democrats and 25 percent as Republicans. Also, 64 percent described themselves as liberal and 29 percent as conservative.
This year, Jewish voters are being heavily courted by Florida’s candidates for governor.
Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum have appeared at synagogues and met with Jewish voters to emphasize their support for the Jewish community and for Israel. DeSantis has aggressively tried to undermine Gillum with Jewish voters, and the Democrat’s camp has pushed back hard against those attempts.
Fine print
The poll of 800 Jewish voters was conducted online through a randomly selected panel from Oct. 2 to 11. Telephone polling is considered the gold standard, but as it’s become more expensive many pollsters are moving to online models.
The pollster said the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The survey was conducted by the Mellman Group. It’s a Democratic polling outfit, but has a high rating — a “B” grade — from the independent political data organization FiveThirtyEight.
The poll was sponsored by the Jewish Electorate Institute, which describes itself as a nonprofit organization founded in August to “deepen the public’s understanding of the Jewish electorate and mobilize the Jewish vote in the 2018 midterm and future elections. The primary focus is to lead non-partisan Get Out the Jewish Vote efforts and encourage civic engagement in the Jewish community.”
It was founded by prominent Jewish Democrats.