According To Gallup Poll, 'Observant' Jews Favor McCain Over Obama

This would seem to make sense. From Arutz Sheva:

Half of observant American Jews favor Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain compared with 40 percent for Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, according to a new Gallup poll. Only 39 percent of the Jewish respondents to the polls defined themselves as religious, far less than the national average.

Sen. Obama has far more support among Jews who do not classify themselves as religious Jews, with 68 percent backing the black Democratic candidate and only 26 percent in favor of Sen. McCain.

One might assume the more observant Jews would value Israel more than a secular Jew and would trust McCain more in that regard--but that actually is not the case.

If you check out the actual Gallup Poll, the 50% vs 40% split mentioned above is actually among all Americans--not Jewish Americans in particular. Among Jewish Americans, the results are:

Only 39% of U.S. Jews report that religion is important in their daily lives, well below the overall national average. Among this smaller group of religious Jews, however, Obama and McCain break even, 45% to 45%. This compares to Obama's 68% to 26% lead among the majority of Jews for whom religion is not important. [Emphasis added]

It would be interesting to see what the breakdown of the religious Jewish vote was in previous elections. Of course, Gallup is not measuring the Orthodox Jewish vote--they just ask whether 'religion is important' in their lives.

As I've mentioned a number of times, the American Jewish Committee did a survey last year that found that 61% said being Jewish was very important to them, 30% said they felt very close to Israel, 69% agreed with the statement “Caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew,” but only 6% said that support for Israel was important in their decision of which candidate to vote for.

I imagine that the breakdown of the Orthodox Jewish preference is far more tilted towards McCain.

The question is whether that, or even the Jewish vote as a whole, will make a difference in the election.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Jewish Vote.