U.S. Jews would overwhelmingly support any major Democratic candidate over President Bush if the election were held today, according to the 2004 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion.30% would be about double Bush’s total in 2000 among Jews (the article says that only 66% of those surveyed supported Gore in 2000, but retrospective polling is notoriously unreliable, polls done at the time showed 80%+ figures), and does not account for the 10% undecided, nor for the fact that some of Dean’s bizarre statements re Iraq have not yet seeped into public consciousness.Joe Lieberman, the only Jewish candidate, would defeat Republican Bush by the largest margin, 71 percent to 24 percent, the poll found.
In one-on-one matchups with the president, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, John Kerry and Richard Gephardt would each receive about 60 percent of the Jewish vote, compared to about 30 percent for Bush, according to the survey conducted for the American Jewish Committee and released Monday.
Also, the articles notes a “slight” increase in Jewish identification as Republicans from 9 to 16%. That’s not slight, that’s almost double!
Jews are only about 2% of the population, but are older and vote more than other groups, so they are more like 4% of the electorate, and are concentrated in swing states. Moreover, Jews are responsible for giving about half of the money the Democrats raise (and 15-20% of Republican cash). This poll has to be ringing some alarm bells at Democratic headquarters in Washington.
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