New Gallup poll shows 75% of U.S. Jews plan to vote Obama
By Haaretz Service
A new poll released by the Gallup organization on Thursday shows Jewish voters favor Barack Obama over John McCain by more than 3 to 1, with 74% saying they will vote for Obama over 22% for McCain.
The poll, which has interviewed over 650 Jewish registered voters each month since June, shows American Jews growing increasingly comfortable with Obama since July, when the Illinois Senator tied up the Democratic Party nomination. The poll shows support for McCain among Jews stood at a high of 34% in June, before beginning its downward turn in July after Obama's nomination.
The highest level of support for Obama according to the poll is among Jews over the age of 55, 74% of which have said they're voting for Obama over 67% of Jews 18 to 34. The Gallup organization says the disparity could be based on a greater inclination among Jews 18 to 34 to call themselves Conservative, but says a similar inclination isn't apparent among Jews aged 35 to 54, 68% of which polled by Gallup have said they're voting Obama.
The poll's findings show that in spite of a certain measure of trepidation among some Jewish voters towards Obama early in his campaign, he is set to receive the same percentage of the Jewish vote (74%) as John Kerry in 2004, and only slightly less than the 80% of the Jewish vote that Al Gore received in 2000 when he had a Jewish running mate in Joe Lieberman.
Earlier in October, a poll commissioned by researchers at New York University revealed that American Jews favor Obama over McCain by a 67 - 33 percent margin.
The survey, which sampled the opinions of over 3,000 respondents - half of them being Jewish - also found that Jews as an ethnic group will support Obama by almost 30 percent more than other white, non-Hispanic voters.
The poll sought to gauge the importance Jewish voters attach to Israel as a consideration in whom they would vote for, with some surprising results. Of all the Jews surveyed who said that Israel is of "high" importance, 63 percent said they would vote for Obama. In contrast, only 42 percent of Jews who said Israel has "very high" importance said they planned to vote for Obama.
Not surprisingly, the Jewish vote swings heavily in McCain's favor among the Orthodox. According to the survey, the Arizona senator can count on support from 75 percent of Orthodox Jewish voters.
1 comment:
It does not come as a surprise to me that people with a heritage of deep study and thought, care and compassion and their own civil rights struggles would come to the only possible conclusion at this time in America's history. That it is the older Jewish community is even less surprising to me; they have lived, loved, learned. I think it's adorable that The Great Shlep turned out to be preaching to the choir ... umm, so to type. Big hugs!
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