(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Jews in New York—a traditionally left-leaning demographic in a left-leaning state—may largely intend to vote for former President Donald Trump over the incumbent, Joe Biden, the Jewish News Syndicate reported.
New York Jews, according to a recent Sienna College poll, favor Trump to Biden by a 53% to 44% margin.
“Jewish voters moving towards the GOP is a clear trend, long in the making,” tweeted Sam Markstein, national political director at the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Markstein noted that while Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, who is Jewish, failed to notch a win over incumbent New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022, he came the closest of any Republican since Gov. George Pataki left office in 2006.
Helping to drive Zeldin’s turnout was his 46% support within the Jewish community.
Jewish voters moving towards the @GOP is a clear trend, long in the making.
Remember: GOP gubernatorial candidate @LeeMZeldin received 46% of the New York Jewish vote in 2022. https://t.co/NTH494WbEB
— Sam Markstein (@Sam_Markstein) February 20, 2024
Oddly enough, the same trend does not hold when it comes to congressional voting. The poll suggested that Jews in the state still intended to back Democrats over Republicans for congressional seats by a 54% to 39% margin.
The discrepancy suggested that Biden has failed in key areas that Jews in the state care most about, with his indifference toward Israel potentially being one area of contention.
The war between the Jewish state and Hamas terrorists in Gaza has been a political quagmire for American leftists who had counted on both Jews and Muslims to vote Democrat as part of their identity-politics election strategy.
However, both groups see Biden’s attempt to straddle the middle by supporting both Israel and Hamas as a tepid and noncommittal response.
In Muslim-heavy areas of Michigan and Minnesota, voters notably have cast their recent primary ballots as “uncommitted” in protest.
Jews have more reason to embrace Trump’s presidency, given his past track record for supporting Israel in his first term. That included moving the U.S. embassy to its official capital of Jerusalem and brokering a series of peace agreements, the Abraham Accords, with several Arab neighbors.
Still, some critics cast doubts on the Sienna poll’s conclusions, noting that the survey of 806 registered New York voters included only 65 Jewish participants.
When segmenting out that portion, the small sample size made the findings too unreliable to be deems statistically significant, argued Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel.
“[T]he margin of error for Jews in the Sienna poll is plus or minus 13 points on each number,” Mellman said, noting that major swings were possible.
Ultimately, he concluded, “this poll tells us very little about how New York Jews will vote.”
Nonetheless, seeing Jewish support max out at 57% would still be a marked decline for Biden, who secured 77% of the U.S. Jewish vote in 2020.
Whether the shift is enough to put New York into play remains to be seen. However, Trump hinted that he thought it was in an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo following his victory in the New Hampshire primary.
🇺🇸TRUMP: WE'RE GOING TO FLIP NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, NEW MEXICO, EVERYTHING
"New York has changed a lot in the last two years. We have migrants all over the street. They're living on Madison Avenue. Nobody can believe what's happened to New York. The people of New York are angry.… pic.twitter.com/iwsTgRXQOc
— Qingen Xu (@QingenXu) February 4, 2024
“I think we’re gonna give New York a heavy shot,” said Trump, who signaled the possibility of holding a rally at Madison Square Gardens.
“They’re very unhappy in New York, what’s happening, and they’re unhappy with the crime,” he continued. “You take a look at the crime in New York; it’s at record levels.”
The Biden administration’s open-border policies and the soft-on-crime stances of George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg have wreaked havoc in particular on New York City.
Things came to a head in New York City last fall when Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s infrastructure were overwhelmed by the mass influx of migrants.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
