Governance Elections
October 18th, 2024 Poll by Jesse Arm

Polling a People: Survey Analysis of the Political and Policy Preferences of 2024’s Jewish Electorate

Key Takeaways

Between October 5th and 9th of 2024, the Manhattan Institute polled a representative sample of 658 Jewish registered voters across the U.S. on their feelings about the 2024 presidential election, issues impacting American Jewry, and other public policy matters.

The survey was conducted based on a sample drawn from a national voter file and online panels, then weighted to match the population of likely Jewish voters on gender, age, and college education. Responses were collected using mixed methods, including a mix of SMS-to-web and online outreach. The poll’s margin of error is +/– 3.8%.

Although Jewish voters remain largely aligned with the Democratic Party, there are growing cracks in that support. A new Manhattan Institute poll finds that Vice President Kamala Harris is on track to perform worse in this year’s election than any Democratic presidential candidate since the Reagan era.

Despite their overall Democratic lean, Jewish voters are more likely to report high levels of concern over growing antisemitism in the Democratic Party than within the Republican Party. “Security, Israel, and antisemitism” are Harris’s weakest issue relative to former President Donald Trump among Jewish voters. Many are likely uncomfortable with the Democratic Party’s tolerance of voices that criticize Israel in extreme terms, such as labeling the country “genocidal.” This is evidenced by the fact that Jews are almost universally supportive of Israel—a mere 5% of Jewish voters say they are not supporters of the Jewish state.

While Jewish voters are strongly aligned with Democrats on the issue of abortion—even a majority of Jewish Republicans describe themselves as generally pro-choice—their views on immigration and fiscal issues don’t match either party. Jewish voters are fiscal moderates, concerned about out-of-control government spending but sympathetic to higher taxes on people in middle- to upper-income brackets. On immigration, they want more vetting in the process but are supportive of increasing high-skilled immigration. On crime, Jewish voters more closely align with Republicans and feel the nation’s criminal justice system is not tough enough. The result is that a significant majority of Jewish voters now say they are open to supporting Republican politicians, while roughly a third report that they will back only Democrats.

Jewish voters support laws banning people from wearing masks or otherwise covering their face with the intent to conceal their identity while congregating in a public place, like a public protest or encampment—an increasingly salient issue following post-October 7th, 2023, incidents of anti-Israel activists seeking to intimidate Jewish students on college campuses, members of Congress, and city dwellers across America.

Jewish voters support taxing university endowments and prefer a color-blind society over a race-conscious one. They are closely divided on affirmative action and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives—as well as on the question of whether those programs do more harm than good when it comes to dealing with antisemitism.

A majority of Jewish voters think the media does a bad job of portraying Israel and a plurality say mainstream Jewish community interest groups in the U.S., like the Anti-Defamation League or the American Jewish Committee, combat antisemitism in a way that is too weak.

Full Results Available: Toplines (Party), Toplines (Denomination)Crosstabs

Horserace

The Democratic advantage among Jewish voters has been consistently slipping in recent presidential election cycles, and Harris is on track for the narrowest margin of victory with Jewish voters (+36%) of any candidate since Michael Dukakis in 1988 (+29%). Her margin is markedly lower than Bill Clinton’s +69% margin in 1992, Barack Obama’s +56% in 2008, and Hillary Clinton’s +47% in 2016 (Figure 1). A hypothetical Harris ticket featuring Jewish Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro—who was passed over as Harris’s VP pick, reportedly in part due to his support for Israel—performs two points better against Trump and JD Vance among Jewish voters.

Figure 1

Harris’s margin is driven by strength among Reform (+53%) and unaffiliated or nondenominational (+45%) Jews. Among Conservative (throughout this document, the Conservative Jewish religious denomination will be capitalized; the conservative American political ideology will not be) Jewish voters (+14%), her support is significantly weaker. Orthodox Jewish voters prefer Trump (+18%) over Harris.

Jews who attend religious services frequently are more supportive of Trump than those who attend infrequently. Among Jews who attend weekly, Harris leads Trump 51% to 46%. Among those who never attend religious services, Harris leads Trump 75% to 24% (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Favorability

President Joe Biden has a net favorability of +28% among Jewish voters, with –31% among Orthodox, +7% among Conservative Jews, +45% among Reform Jews, and +41% among unaffiliated or nondenominational Jews.

Jewish voters have strongly unfavorable views on Trump, who has a –39 net favorability among all Jews. He has positive favorability among Orthodox Jews (+25%) but is swamped among Conservative (–23%), Reform (–56%), and unaffiliated or nondenominational (–49%) Jews.

Harris boasts higher approval than Biden, with a +32% net favorability driven by strength among Reform (+50%) and nondenominational Jews (+41%). She performs better among Orthodox (–29%) and Conservative (+13%) Jews than Biden does.

Ideological and Party Affiliation

A little over a quarter of Jewish voters identify as politically conservative (and 11% as very conservative) and just under half as liberal (21% very), but this varies dramatically by religious denomination. Among Orthodox Jewish voters, 50% are conservative (28% very), and 31% are liberal (13% very). Among Conservative Jews, 44% are conservative (18% very), 33% are liberal (17% very). Among Reform Jews, 19% are conservative (6% very) and 74% are liberal (37% very). Among nondenominational or unaffiliated Jews, 13% are conservative (7% very) and 47% are liberal (26% very)—this is also the group most likely to identify as ideologically moderate (40%) (Figure 3).

Figure 3

60% of Jewish voters think of themselves as Democrats, 23% as Republicans, and 15% as independents—but again, denominational gaps are stark. Orthodox Jews lean Republican, while other Jews are overwhelmingly Democratic.

Notably, despite this, only 34% report exclusively voting for Democrats and 12% exclusively for Republicans. Even among more liberal Reform (38% only Democrats) and nondenominational Jews (41%), the majority does not vote exclusively Democratic.

Issue Importance

Jewish voters, as a whole, select abortion most frequently as their top issue in the 2024 election (33%). Abortion is followed by the economy (28%), democracy/election integrity (27%), security, Israel, and antisemitism (22%), immigration (19%), inflation/prices (19%), healthcare (16%), and climate/environment (14%).

However, there are significant denominational gaps in issue prioritization. For Reform and unaffiliated/nondenominational Jews, abortion topped out the rankings followed by democracy/election integrity. For Orthodox Jews, security, Israel, and antisemitism topped issue importance. For Conservative Jews, the economy was the top issue—closely trailed by abortion (Figure 4).

Figure 4