Jewish Voters Still Overwhelmingly Support Obama
For much of the past year, there has been a group of people on the right who have tried to maintain the idea that the Republican Party had a chance to cut into the President’s strong support among Jewish-Americans due to the President’s supposedly bad treatment of Israeli interests. Given the fact that the Jewish vote, though small on a national scale, has been solidly Democratic for decades and rarely tied specifically to issues involving Israel, I never really bought into the idea that we’d see any kind of mass Jewish exodus from the Democratic Party. Based on recent polling, it appears that I was correct:
President Barack Obama is closing extending his lead with Jewish voters, leading among registered voters 70-25 percent according to unreleased Gallup daily tracking poll data .
The data, obtained through a Democratic source, shows Obama up from leading 64-29 in polling this spring — and on par with his 2008 performance at this point when he led 69-25 over John McCain in Gallup polling. The data is drawn from tracking polls taken between July 1 and September 10th.
Despite a heated debate on Israel, most Jewish voters are Democrats and align closely with the Democratic Party on domestic issues from abortion to taxes and spending, and Republicans have tried without success for years to pry the group away from the Democratic Party.
The idea that the GOP is going to steal the Jewish vote any time soon is as fanciful as the idea that they’d be able to get the African-American vote.
Hey GOP…. Here’s a hint: American Jews are…. Americans. I know you are shocked by this but it is true. What will probably shock you just as much is that they can tell the difference between Israeli interests and American interests and what is more they are smart enough to know that the two don’t always line up in perfect sync.
They also happen to know that BIBI is little better than a snake oil salesman.
Well, Jews are supposed to be smart, so it makes sense they wouldn’t go to the party of stupid people :-).
More realistically, Jews are traditionally liberal and are going to remain liberal as long as they pay even passing attention to their Book, which reminds them that God is on the side of the poor and the weak.
Also too, they understand that Obama supports Israel , despite right wing propaganda that the Kenyan Muslim has endangered Israel.
Conservatism in america (and as represented in the GOP) amounts to nothing more than the preservation of privilege for straight white christian (used to be protestant) males. Throw in rich people to that grouping if you’re talking about the GOP as a whole. Groups outside of these demographics don’t vote republican. Not jews, not asians, no one.
Opposition to Netanyahu IS support for Israel…
@Console:
You forgot racists.
@Console:
Why do people keep repeating the false meme that Republicans are the party of the rich. The richest members of congress are Democrats. The most affluent zip codes in the U.S. vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Nancy Pelosi does not represent a poor district but represents one of the richest districts in the country. The very wealthy in the U.S are generally Democrats with the upper middle class and middle class whites being Republicans.
There are a few conservative writers who believe that Republicans would be better off throwing the extremely rich under the bus by increasing the AMT and eliminating the write off for state taxes to punish high state and local tax coastal states that heavily vote for Democrats. Yet, for some reason many in the Republican Party keep pandering to rich democrats instead of middle class
@superdestroyer:
Why do Republicans constantly play the “class warfare” card?
Are you envious of rich people?
@al-Ameda:
I think a better example would be seen in the recent Gawker.com article on private schools. What many Republicans resent in the blatant hypocrisy of the elites.
The blocks inside the Democrat party seem to not care about the elite just as long as those blocks get their portion of the government goodies.
Shocking news.
It’s amazing that after 2000 years of being chased, beaten, raped, dispossessed and slaughtered simply for being what they are, that Jews would remain suspicious of a party built on contempt for anyone not exactly like themselves. Huh.
Here’s a clue for my Republican friends. You know those racist dog whistles? Jews hear them, too, and we have long experience with your type of folks.
@OzarkHillbilly:
If Jewish-Americans put America’s interest first then why did Rahm Emanual, former U.S.Congressman, former Chief of Staff of the White House, and current mayor of Chicago, work in Israel during the first Gulf War instead of doing something for Americans? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel#Early_and_personal_life
The idea that the Democrats will ever do anything not in the best interest of Israel is laughable when some many people with power inside the Democratic Party work to protect the interest of Israel.
I think that many of the Jewish people don’t like or trust White people, especially Christians. Can’t say I blame them given history.
And it really isn’t the Jewish vote that counts, it is the Jewish money. Jews are only 2% of the population, and most live in liberal meccas like New York and California. Their votes don’t matter, but their money does. They contribute around 60% of the funds to the DNC. It is amazing that nobody really talks about that. We talk about big money and politics all the time, and everyone knows about labor unions, the NRA and the Koch brothers, but you don’t see squat about how Jewish money and influence affects our system.
Without that Jewish funding, there wouldn’t be a Democratic Party.
@superdestroyer:
You should read “Rich State, Poor State, Red State, Blue State” by Andrew Gelman.
Which makes GOP pandering to Israel even more sad and pathetic.
@Shakes:
Have any evidence of that claim?
And, by the way: Florida, genius. It’s about Florida.
Hey Michael,
I first read about it this year in the New York Ovserver.
It was the first time I had ever heard or read of that figure, and it is an astounding figure for just 2% of the population. They basically give the majority of the funding for the Democratic Party, and I think it would collapse without them.
I was surprised as well, so I am not surprised if you never heard of this. It is interesting that with all of the “money and politics” threads that this never comes up. I avidly follow politics, and I had no idea.
I don’t think Jewish votes are what people are after, I think they want the Jewish money.
Doug, it was very sweet of you to do this for our racist friends. Superdestroyer and his ilk just hadn’t really been included that much lately, because of the embassy protests and all that, and then you just toss them a little something.
Sometimes you come off as heartless, but then you do something like this, and it reminds us all how much you really do care about each and every one of us, even the racists. You’re not a curmudgeonly hair-splitting obstinate guy with no heart, not really — you’re just a big softie!
As if there aren’t plenty of blocks inside the Repub party that aren’t worried about getting their portion of government goodies? Please…here’s a little hint, politics is all about getting goodies…it is completely bipartisan…
@superdestroyer:
False meme? By income distribution, the higher up you go on the income scale.. the more republican the group in relation to other income groups. Now for the most part, we’re talking simply the 200,000 crowd and up. But the polling I’ve seen at the edges still show a GOP advantage:
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jnd260/cab/CAB2012%20-%20Page1.pdf
That’s a 58-27 GOP advantage with a polling group with a mean worth of 14 mill.
sd:
Take a look at the exit polls here. Poor people vote D. Rich people vote R. Generally speaking.
shakes:
Try learning a bit about Sheldon Adelson.
Obviously they do not mind supporting their Enemy!
Jews have a lot of experience dealing with enemies, and they have a pretty impressive track record of outlasting their enemies. This suggests that they’re pretty good at recognizing their real enemies, and that they know more about this than you do.