Jewish vote strengthens for Democrats

Poll: Republican Party Losing Jewish Voters
October 23, 2006
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) today announced that the efforts of Jewish Republicans to switch the political affiliations of Jewish voters has floundered. Released earlier today, the American Jewish Committee's (AJC) 2006 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion shows that the number of Jewish voters identifying themselves as Democrats has increased from 48 percent to 54 percent since the last mid-term election in 2002. At the same time, the number of Jewish voters identifying themselves as Republicans has decreased from 18 percent in 2002 to 15 percent in 2006.

"These numbers reaffirm what we have been saying for so long. Jewish voters just don't feel comfortable with the Republican Party," said NJDC Executive Director Ira Forman. "Most recently, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) spent a million dollars in a 'devoid of truth' campaign to divide the Jewish community and convince Jewish voters to switch their party affiliation. All they have to show for it is a three percent decrease in the number of Jews who consider themselves to be Republicans and a six percent increase in the number of Jews who are now Democrats. If this is what you get with $1 million in RJC ad buys, I hope that they spend $2 million in 2008."

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How were they going to square their message of extreme individualism with the idea of Tikkun Olam? My favorite verses of Torah, and I would suspect a lot of Jews share my opinion, are those which implore us to share what we have with those less fortunate and to help the downtrodden. How does the Republicans' agenda of shifting the tax burden onto labor and off of capital reflect this Biblical imperative? How does their corporate greed (read: Enron) relate to leaving the corners of our fields for the widow and the orphan? How do their policies in Iraq and their lack of policy in Darfur/Sudan help the downtrodden?

Once again, the Republicans miss the boat. Fortunately they've blown a lot of money missing it. Even more fortunately, I can continue to say with pride that my fellow Jews are staunch Democrats.

kinda. Being Jewish and being a bush era republiCON is like being Black or Gay and belonging to that affliation which goes against your intrinsic principles.

There used to be honorable ones, like Jacob Javits. Now it's just a group of rightwingers who have to block out reality or who otherwise swallow the GOPher scare tactics whole.

I have some friends who political conservative who, these days, are emphasizing that they are "independents." Most of them want nothing to do with Bush & Co.

in this bush era of republiCONS.

estactic over this!

Three groups targed for gains by the Republicans, and resisted. I guess it's back to the drawing board for the Repubs... thanks for trying.

I guessed the numbers would remain about the same, but I am pleased to see they went up for the Democrats. It isn't really that surprising. Despite what many think about us, we really tend not to be single-issue voters, spending more time looking at the big picture. I think the other thing that back-fired on the Republicans is they tried "scare" tactics on us. We don't respond well to that.