New Gallup Poll Indicates The Changing Reality Of The Jewish Democrat

Jews in America have always been overwhelmingly liberal and Democrat. That is a truth that political careers have been made and broken on. That truth is changing slowly, as it is for the rest of Americans.

In a recent Gallup poll, from a high of 71% of Jews who self-identified as being Democrat, that number was seen to drop to 61%, a significant and surprising change. Though it reflects national trend, it is more marked amongst Jews. Since 2008, there has been a 7% drop in the percentage of the general population who identify themselves as Democrat, but in the same period of time, there has been a 10% in the Jewish population self-identifying as Democrat. There has been much conjecture as to the reason for that rule and why it is changing, and its effect on US and global politics.

In a 2013 political analysis, the Pew Forum stated that 70% of Jews identified themselves with the Democratic Party, more than twice the amount who identified themselves as Republican. That has been attributed to the eastern European liberal background of the Jews who arrived in America in the early 1900′s. That has been accepted as part of the American Jewish identity, and Jews have historically played a prominent role in labor movements and social reform in the USA. That phenomenon, which has always been accepted as a given, has been trending and a change is imminent.

The notable exception to that rule has always been Orthodox Jews. The same Pew Forum that identified such a prominent liberal demographic amongst Jews found that roughly half of Orthodox Jews describe themselves as political conservatives, and 57% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party.

Politically, Jews are over-represented, and that presence is almost exclusively Democrat. Though there has never been a Jewish president or vice president (or first lady for that matter), Jews in the U.S. are proportionately well-represented in Congress, with 28 members of the 535 House and Senate members in the new Congress identifying their religion as Jewish, meaning that about 5% of all House members and Senators are Jewish, compared with the 2% of the adult population. Of these Jewish members of Congress, all are Democrats or independent, with the one exception being newly elected Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York.

It has been speculated that the reason American Jews are liberal is because they tend to sympathize with the less fortunate and with minorities: like many black and Hispanic Americans, 54% of Jews believe government should be bigger, with more services, compared to just 40% of the public at large who believe the same.

Jews feel strongly about discrimination as you might expect, but the feelings extend even to those who they might see as the enemy. Despite problems between Israel and its Arab neighbors, 72% of Jews say Muslims in America are discriminated against, versus just 47% of the public at large who say that. While 64% of Jews say there is discrimination against African Americans, only 47% of all Americans do. This gap extends to attitudes towards Latino Americans, as well.

The roots of these liberal values probably lie in Jewish history. 73% of Jews believe that remembering the Holocaust is an essential part of being Jewish.

On the issue of Israel, only 40% of Jews believe God “gave them Israel”. This percentage is lower than the general public’s belief (at 44%) and far below white Evangelicals’ 82% conviction. While it’s true that 69% of Jews, including at least 60% of all age groups, feel an attachment to Israel, the problem for Republican recruiters is that only 43% of Jews believe that caring about Israel is an essential part of being Jewish.

In a November 2012 Op Ed piece in the NY Times, the influence of the Jewish Democrat on the presidential elections was investigated. In the belief that Obama was not a strong supporter of Israel, political donors like Sheldon Adelson and groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Emergency Committee for Israel spent tens of millions of dollars in 2012 and before to sow fear and doubt over Israel and to move Jewish votes away from President Obama and the Democratic Party. Such an effort should have had drastic effects. Despite those efforts, 70% of American Jews voted for Obama, a figure that was not significantly different than the support he and other Democratic presidential candidates had received in previous elections.

The conclusion of the NY Times was that campaigns to shift Jewish votes over Israel don’t work because the overwhelming majority of Jewish voters say the economy, not Israel, is their top electoral concern, followed by health care, Social Security and Medicare, making them out to be perfectly in line with the average American Democrat who was born without the benefit of being Jewish.

The Gallup poll concluded that, “the general Democratic orientation of American Jews is a well-established political fact, although this Democratic slant has decreased marginally in recent years, as it has among the general U.S. population. Given the small sample sizes of the Jewish population in traditional surveys, it is difficult to determine precisely those issues on which Jewish Democrats nationally may differ from Jewish Republicans, although most news accounts suggest that U.S. relations with Israel is certainly one of them.”