Is The Jewish Vote Shifting?

by Farley Weiss, Chairman

8/5/2024, 5:26:37 PM

According to a new poll by Rich Baris, the American Jewish vote is almost evenly split between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. The poll showed Harris winning the Jewish vote by a 52.7% to 45.9% margin. This is a massive change in the Jewish vote, which went 68% to 30% in favor of Joe Biden in 2020.   

The poll reflects significant Jewish concerns about Harris after she boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress and made statements sympathizing with the anti-Israel demonstrators that have overwhelmed numerous college campuses and frightened the American Jewish community. 

A February 2024 Pew survey found that 89% of American Jews favor Israel in their war against Hamas. Likely as a result, Trump’s support within the Jewish community has been steadily increasing. An Associated Press poll showed that in 2020, Trump won 43% of the Jewish vote in Florida, a huge jump over 2016. 

The recent Republican letter signed by 48 U.S. Senators detailing the massive amount of arms Congress has approved for Israel that have been held up by the Biden administration is deeply concerning to the American Jewish community. The fact that no Biden administration official greeted Netanyahu at the airport when he recently arrived in Washington was juxtaposed with Trump’s warm greeting to Netanyahu outside the front door of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

Trump has made it clear that he supports an Israeli victory over Hamas in Gaza. Biden and Harris advocate an immediate ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza even before Israel gets back all its hostages, including Americans. Trump has pledged to deport the foreign students who make up a significant percentage of the anti-Israel demonstrators on college campuses.

Prominent American Jews who voted for Biden in 2020 have said they will not be voting for Harris, including Prof. Alan Dershowitz, former Pay Pal president David Marcus and financier Bill Ackman. 

Antisemitism has increased rapidly and anti-Israel demonstrations have mushroomed across the country but there is no indication that Biden or a future Harris administration will do anything significant to make Jews safer. 

Harris supporters like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have refused to hold a Senate hearing on the rise of antisemitism and attacks on Jews in America. Harris supporter and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has failed to bring the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act to a vote. The act passed the House 320-91 and would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education, which will strengthen the department’s ability to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws against antisemites.  

In July 2023, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, publicly said: “I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state, that the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and autonomy, that the dream of a two-state solution is slipping away from us.”   

Just a few days later, Biden praised Jayapal as “a woman with more courage and chutzpah and stamina than anyone I know.” Jayapal is supporting Harris’s candidacy.

Jayapal has described Harris as having “deep empathy” for Palestinian-Americans and stated, “I think there’s a new opportunity to appeal to—and I’m not saying it will be easy—but I do think there’s a new opportunity to appeal to Muslim voters, to young voters, to Arab-American voters.” In other words, voters who are often strongly anti-Israel and antisemitic.

History shows that turning on Israel and the Jews is bad politics. Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama all saw their share of the Jewish vote crater due to their hostile policies towards Israel. In the case of Carter and Bush, this helped deny them a second term in office.

Trump has said that Jews should care about and prioritize Israel. Poll results show that Jews do care about Israel. As a result, Trump could get the highest Jewish vote total for a Republican in over 100 years.