In the 2024 election, a majority of Jewish voters cast their ballots for Vice President Kamala Harris, exit polls suggest.
According to NBC News exit polls, 78% of Jewish Americans voted for the vice president, while 22% voted for now President-elect Donald Trump. A Fox News/Associated Press exit poll found a smaller majority of Jews, 66%, voted for Harris, while 32% voted for Trump.
Jews — a traditionally Democratic demographic who make up about 2.4% of the total population — broke along similar margins in past elections.
For example, in 2020, 69% of Jews voted for Joe Biden, and 30% voted for Trump, according to an Associated Press survey. And in 2016, 71% of Jews supported Hillary Clinton, while 24% supported Trump, according to New York Times exit polls.
The findings should be taken with a grain of salt, as exit polls tend to have large margins of error, according to previous reporting from McClatchy News.
But they indicate that — despite overtures from both the Trump and Harris campaigns — there was not a sea change among Jewish voters this year.
On the campaign trail, Trump touted himself as a key ally of Jews and Israel.
During a speech before the Israeli American Council in September, Trump told Jewish voters, “You have a big protector in me.”
He has also said that Jews who support Democrats “should have their head examined” and said, if he lost the election, “the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that,” according to The Associated Press.
Additionally, shortly before the election, the Republican Jewish Coalition aired a commercial in swing states featuring Jewish women discussing voting for Trump.
The Harris campaign also targeted Jewish voters.
Her campaign aired ads in Pennsylvania — a swing state with a significant population of Jews — highlighting how she would “stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself,” according to CNN.
This story was originally published November 06, 2024 5:05 PM.