By Dan Boylan
A new poll finds that a bare majority, 51 percent of Jewish American voters, approve of the way President Trump is handling U.S.-Israel relations, and that 74 percent plan to vote for Democratic candidates for Congress in next month’s midterm elections.
The survey was conducted by the Mellman Group on behalf of the nonpartisan Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI) and polled 800 U.S. Jewish voters. Results were released Wednesday.
Overall, the poll found 75 percent of American Jewish voters disapprove of Mr. Trump, a reflection of their partisan and ideological affiliations as it also found that 68 percent of respondents identified as Democrats, while only 25 percent said they were Republicans.
In the past year, the Trump administration has made multiple major policy moves seen as widely popular in Israel.
Those include recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there, clamping down on Palestinians by cutting aid and closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Washington office, and withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal.
But the American Jewish community has viewed the matters far differently.
While the survey found 92 percent of respondents identified as “generally pro-Israel,” they were particularly critical of Mr. Trump’s Israel policies with 56 percent disapproving of moving the U.S. Embassy, 62 percent disapproving of U.S. relations with the Palestinians and 70 percent disapproving of withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.
Only 6 percent of American Jewish voters said Mr. Trump’s Israel policy will cause them to consider voting for him despite their disagreements with him on other important issues.
The poll was conducted online between Oct. 2-11 and selected for likely American Jewish voters. Of those polled, 92 percent indicated they are “almost certain” to vote in November. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.
