Donald Trump has taken a surprising lead among Jewish voters in dark New York, a new poll shows.
According to a poll by the Siena Research Institute, the Republican won support from 50 percent of likely Jewish voters in the state, compared to 49 percent who chose Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris’ results reflect a decline among the electorate since President Biden withdrew from the presidential race. In June, Biden held a 52 percent lead over Trump among New York’s Jewish population, down from 46 percent.
The poll was released Tuesday, the same day Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate after the Democrat surged in the polls.
Donald Trump has taken a surprising lead among Jewish voters in deep-blue New York
Kamala Harris held a 53 percent lead over her Republican opponent compared to 39 percent in New York as a whole, as she benefits from a surge in polling results since President Biden withdrew from the race.
The shift marks a dramatic decline for Democrats within a voter group they normally dominate. Fox News cites statistics from the American Enterprise Institute showing that Jewish voters have voted Democratic by a margin of 71 percent to 26 percent since 1968.
Nationally, Biden won 68 percent support among Jewish voters, compared to 30 percent for Trump in 2020. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 71 percent to 26 percent.
Trump’s lead among Jewish voters in New York comes months after he held a rally in the Bronx that experts said drew a larger-than-expected crowd among African-American voters.
Across all New York voter groups, Harris led Trump by 53 percent, compared to 39 percent. That’s down from Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, when he won 60 percent of the vote, compared to Trump’s 37 percent.
But while the GOP candidate claimed he believed he could win the Empire State in November, no Republican has won the overwhelmingly Democratic state since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
While Trump’s narrow lead among Jewish voters may not be large enough to swing the state his way, the new poll’s results could be indicative of the difficulties Harris is having in consolidating her voter base.
The poll was released Tuesday, the same day Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, seen together at his introductory event in Philadelphia
Supporters of Israel in its war with Hamas have expressed concern that Harris may not show the same level of support for the Jewish state as Biden.
The shift could be the result of fierce protests among young voters over the high number of civilian casualties in Gaza. Conservatives criticize her for pandering to the protesters.
Harris was the first administration official to push for an “immediate ceasefire” in March and has since raised the issue several times in interviews criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The vice president was noticeably absent from the Israeli leader’s joint address to Congress last month. Asked recently about Netanyahu’s role in the massacre, Harris responded that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
The new poll was also released on the same day that Harris named Walz as her running mate, edging out Jewish candidate Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania.
Trump’s campaign has previously raised the issue of Jewish voters leaving the Democratic Party. In a radio interview in March, he accused Jewish people who vote for his opponents of hating Israel and “their religion.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, DC on July 24, prior to an address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill — which Kamala Harris conspicuously missed
The Democratic Party is divided over the war between Israel and Hamas. Pictured: Displaced Palestinians walk through a rubble-filled street in the Hamad area of the southern Gaza Strip
Speaking to former White House aide Sebastian Gorka, Trump continued: “Any Jewish person who votes Democrat hates their religion.
“They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed because Israel will be destroyed,” he said.
Following the comments, the White House issued a statement condemning Donald Trump’s “vile and deranged anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates told Mediaite: “President Biden has put his foot down when it comes to disgusting and deranged anti-Semitic rhetoric.
“As anti-Semitic crimes and acts of hate rise around the world — including the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust — leaders have an obligation to call out hate by its name and unite Americans against it.”