Many Republicans rejoiced when a recent Pew Research Center analysis of voter turnout in the 2024 U.S. presidential election showed the GOP with its largest percentage of Jewish support in 40 years.
The Pew analysis gave Republican candidate Donald Trump 35% of the Jewish vote, while Democrat Kamala Harris got 63%. That 28-point gap was the lowest since Democrat Walter Mondale bested Republican Ronald Reagan among Jewish voters by 26 points: 57% to 31%.
And it showed a dramatic upsurge from 1992, when Republican George H.W. Bush polled just 11% among Jewish voters against Democrat Bill Clinton, who received 80%.
The numbers, however, aren’t so clear-cut.
Network exit polls gave Harris a 78% to 22% advantage over Trump in 2024, similar to Hillary Clinton’s 71% to 24% edge in 2016. (The exit polls didn’t report Jewish voters in 2020.)
Pew had Democrat Joe Biden leading Trump among Jewish voters, 70% to 27%, in 2020 and Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump, 66% to 30%, four years earlier. The research center said the changes in support for the candidates were within the polling margin of error. The margins of error were plus or minus 6.9 percentage points in 2024, 10.6 percentage points in 2020 and 15.3 percentage points in 2016.
“We would characterize the presidential vote preferences of Jewish voters in the last few elections as largely consistent,” senior Pew researcher Hannah Hartig told JNS. “The balance of presidential candidate support in 2024 is not statistically different than 2016 or 2020.”
The sample sizes of Jewish voters are “relatively small, and the margin of error is relatively wide,” Hartig said.
‘Key precincts in critical battleground states’
Republican Jewish Coalition spokesman Sam Markstein, whose group spent millions of dollars to elect U.S. President Donald Trump, argued that exit polls and turnout studies don’t tell the whole story.
“National numbers are fun to look at, but what matters in elections is winning more Jewish Americans’ votes in key precincts in the critical battleground states, which is exactly what President Trump did and the RJC helped to deliver in 2024,” he told JNS.
For example, in Oakland County, Mich., which has a significant number of Jewish voters, Trump did better in 2024 than 2020 by seven points in Oak Park, eight points in West Bloomfield and five points in Southfield, according to an analysis for the RJC.
“Jews in Los Angeles, Jews in Chicago, Jews in New York City are not making the difference when it comes to presidential politics,” Markstein told JNS.
Republicans have sought for years to woo Jewish voters with strong support for Israeli government policies, aligning themselves with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even as many Jewish Democrats have criticized him. A newer development is the fact that a majority of Senate Democrats voted last month to cut off arms sales to the Jewish state.
The Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip have elevated Israel as an issue among American Jews. Added to that is a spike in antisemitism that has made Jews more fearful. An American Jewish Committee report found that 56% of Jewish Americans avoided some activities or behaviors due to concerns about antisemitism.
Some Jewish Democrats expressed concern after their party nominated New York state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani as their candidate for New York City mayor, even after he refused to condemn the slogan and now oft-heard chant “Globalize the intifada,” which Jewish Americans see as a call to violence. Mandani has since backed away somewhat from that position.
‘Driving away American Jews’
“Every four years, my Jewish Republican friends predict this is going to be the year that Jews tack Republican,” Steve Rabinowitz, a longtime consultant to Democratic and Jewish causes, told JNS.
The Pew numbers don’t include enough Jews to come to any conclusions, but “there may have been some movement” to the GOP, according to Rabinowitz.
“It’s at least a little cause for concern,” he told JNS. “It means we have to work that much harder.”
Trump’s new law, which some independent studies suggest would take away nutrition assistance or Medicaid from millions of low-income Americans, ran into criticism from the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Center for Justice, a social-justice organization that opposes Trump’s policies.
“Most Jewish Americans identify with the Democratic Party irrespective of a candidate’s position on Israel, because they prioritize social-justice issues,” said Guy Ziv, an associate professor at American University and associate director of its Israel studies center.
At the same time, reports of starvation in Gaza and Netanyahu’s new military offensive in Gaza City are turning off some Democrats. (Israel has called the charge that it is starving Gazans a “blood libel.”)
“I feel that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has been a change in the U.S.-Israel relationship for a lot of American Jews,” Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Democratic donor and an active member of the Jewish community, told JNS.
“We did see a very significant shift in American Jews saying we need to stand against Israeli policy,” she said. “On one hand, we appreciate Israel, but on the other hand, Netanyahu has lost the support of American Jews.”
Rabinowitz agreed. “The Gaza situation is painful, and it’s a major turnoff for a lot of people,” he told JNS. “It doesn’t make me less of a Zionist, but it’s very concerning, as it is for so many others. This is a factor.”
Most Republicans line up behind Netanyahu, but “Israel government policies are driving away American Jews,” Ziv told JNS.
“A greater number of American Jews are feeling that it is Israel government policies that are fueling antisemitism, and have made American Jews and other Jews in the Diaspora less safe,” he said. “We’re quickly moving away from the bipartisan support for Israel, due in large part because the idea of shared values is less relevant today.”
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