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.
