70% of Jews plan to vote Biden, Pew study finds

Projected numbers are nearly identical to the real Jewish vote during 2016 US election

By Ben Sales

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13 October 2020, 11:52 pm

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Ben Sales is a news editor at The Times of Israel

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on October 13, 2020. (JIM WATSON / AFP)

JTA — The Jewish vote in the upcoming US presidential election should be very close to the way it has been split since 2012, a new study by the Pew Research Center found.

The survey, conducted earlier this month and published Tuesday, found that 70% of American Jews plan to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden, while 27% plan to vote for President Donald Trump.

If those numbers bear out, they will be nearly identical to the Jewish result in 2016, when Pew found that Hillary Clinton won 71% of the Jewish vote to Trump’s 25%. In 2012, the numbers were slightly higher for the Republican candidate: Barack Obama won 69% of the Jewish vote while Mitt Romney won 30%.

The margin of error for Jewish respondents on the Pew survey is quite large, at 9.6%, which means that the result is statistically similar to the Jewish vote in previous elections.

The poll is a blow to Jewish Republican hopes that Trump’s record in office — including recognizing Israeli territorial claims, brokering peace between Israel and two Arab states and pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement — could shift the vote in his favor.

Groups of protesters gather in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park to denounce lockdowns of their neighborhood due to a spike in COVID-19 cases on October 7, 2020 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)

The Pew poll also found that 35% of Jewish Americans approve of the job Trump has done in office, similar to his 38% approval rating among Americans overall.

Pew found that 52% of Americans overall prefer Biden while 42% prefer Trump. Large majorities of Jews, Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants and religiously unaffiliated voters support Biden. Most white Christians, including the vast majority of white evangelicals, support Trump.