In Battleground States of Florida and Pennsylvania, Jewish Voters Favor Biden Over Trump by Over 50 Point Margin

Polls commissioned by J Street show Biden outperforming Clinton in ‘16, Obama in ‘12

October 21, 2020

New polls of likely Jewish voters in the key battleground states of Florida and Pennsylvania show Joe Biden with a massive lead in the presidential race against Donald Trump, leading 73-22% in Florida and 75-22% in Pennsylvania.

The surveys of 600 likely Jewish voters in Florida and 710 likely Jewish voters in Pennsylvania were commissioned by J Street, the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans, and conducted by GBAO Strategies. They show Biden significantly outperforming Hillary Clinton’s strong showing with American Jews from the 2016 presidential election, when J Street’s exit polling found her winning Jewish voters nationwide by a 70-25% margin, and in Florida by a 68-28% margin.

“Jewish voters in Florida and Pennsylvania resoundingly reject Donald Trump’s domestic and foreign agenda, and they are embracing Joe Biden in overwhelming numbers,” said pollster Jim Gerstein. “With two weeks remaining to Election Day and very few undecided voters, Biden appears to be on track for the best performance among Jewish voters in a presidential election since President Obama in 2008.”

The polls reaffirm that Israel is not at all a top voting issue for Jewish voters, with just 6% in Florida listing it among their top priorities. Instead, they share the same major concerns as most Americans, with a large majority citing the pandemic as their top priority issue, followed by health care and the economy.

When asked about major foreign policy issues, these voters clearly aligned with the policies of Joe Biden and the Democratic party, strongly supporting re-entering the Iran nuclear agreement (64-27 in Florida) and a two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement that would include capitals in Jerusalem both for the State of Israel and for an independent Palestinian state (64-16 in FL). Large majorities say they trust Biden to do a better job than Trump on the issues of Israel, Iran and “keeping American Jews safe.” On the question of which candidate would be better at combating white nationalism and antisemitism, Biden leads Trump 75-20 in Florida.

“Once again, the notion that American Jews make their voting decisions based on Israel – and that they support right-leaning Middle East policies – is proving to be a total myth,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “No matter how many times he claims to be the ‘most pro-Israel president’ ever, Trump is facing a tidal wave of fierce opposition from American Jews in Florida, in Pennsylvania and across the country. The only political ‘exodus’ we see in the numbers is Trump losing a significant amount of his Jewish support from 2016.”

GBAO Strategies designed the questionnaires for these two surveys of likely Jewish voters in Florida and Pennsylvania. The Florida survey was conducted October 12-14, 2020 with a web-based panel, and the Pennsylvania survey was conducted October 12-15, 2020 with a web-based panel and text-to-web interviews. Respondents self-identified as Jewish, and said that they are either likely to vote or already voted in the 2020 election.

Full results: PA poll, crosstabs | FL poll, crosstabs | GBAO survey analysis

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Visit the polling page for our 2020 Surveys of Jewish Likely Voters in Florida and Pennsylvania