Demographics and Decisions: Projecting the Jewish Vote in 2016

When it comes to projecting the Jewish vote in 2016, understanding demographics might lend some semblance of sanity to an election that most observers would compare to a roller coaster ride.

America’s primary election season is inching closer to its conclusion: the Republican National Convention in Cleveland from July 18-21 and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia from July 25-28. Five candidates remain in the primary race: Democrats Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and Republicans Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), Ohio Governor John Kasich, and businessman Donald Trump.

Against the backdrop of the unpredictable primary stretch and the possibility of a contested Republican convention, JNS.org surveyed Jewish demographic experts for their take on how American Jews might vote in the remaining primaries and in November’s general election. 

How Jews Vote and Why it Matters

While Jews represent just 2 percent of the American population, surveys indicate that more than 90 percent of Jews who are registered to vote make it to the polls, compared to 74 percent of all Americans. Additionally, in 2013, 70 percent of U.S. Jews were living in New York, California, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, and Pennsylvania—states whose combined 167 electoral votes make up more than half of the 270 electoral votes a presidential candidate needs to win the election.

In 2013, the Pew Research Center’s “Portrait of Jewish Americans” survey showed that 70 percent of Jewish voters were Democrats, compared to 49 percent of the general American public. One exception, however, is Orthodox Jews. The Pew study said that 57 percent of Orthodox Jews identify or lean Republican, while 36 percent identify or lean Democrat. But Orthodox Jews represent “a very small part of the Jewish population, just 10 percent,” noted Dr. Steven M. Cohen, a research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR).

Other Jewish groups likely leaning Republican are what Cohen calls “ethnic Jews”—those who are more “culturally conservative,” including immigrant Russian-speaking Jews, who “see a conservative political philosophy as most opposed to the government that oppressed them for decades.”

When Did U.S. Jews Become Liberal?

While today’s American Jews lean overwhelmingly Democrat, that wasn’t always the case. 

“In the late 19th century, from roughly 1864 until roughly 1916, American Jews voted Republican in overwhelming numbers. We don’t have a lot of data to substantiate that … but what we do know allows us to make a judgment call,” said Dr. Steven Windmueller, a demographer from Hebrew Union College’s Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management.

Dr. Ira Sheskin, a demographer at the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami, explained that “the nature of the parties does change over time” and that “back in the 1800s, Republicans and Democrats held different views than they do today.” 

From 1916 onward, the Jewish vote went to the Democratic Party. By the time former president George H. W. Bush ran for re-election in 1992, he received only 16 percent of the Jewish vote, Sheskin noted.

Jews continued voting predominantly Democratic through President Barack Obama’s two campaigns. But while Obama garnered anywhere from 74 to 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, depending on whose data is used, his Jewish support dropped to 69 percent in the 2012 election. 

“Was that a reaction to some of [Obama’s] policies? His relationship with the government of Israel, or other issues? It’s difficult to say, but we think there has been some small trending over the last 15 to 20 years toward voting for more Republicans on the part of some Jews that are maybe historically voting Democratic,” Windmueller told JNS.org.

This growth in Jewish Republican votes might be attributed to younger Jews who don’t affiliate with a party and who register as independents, although only 17 percent of Jews ages 18-29 identified as Republican in Pew’s 2013 survey. Single-issue voters who vote, for instance, exclusively on Israel and Middle East foreign policy, or the growth of America’s Orthodox Jewish population, are additional factors that may lead to more Jews voting Republican.

Sheskin, however, cautions against reading too much into the aforementioned factors when it comes to the Jewish vote. He said the uptick in Jewish Republican voting had already started after the elder Bush’s 1992 campaign, when the sitting president won a particularly low portion (16 percent) of the Jewish vote. According to data provided by Sheskin, Jews voted for Republican presidential candidates at an average rate of 32 percent across the 1972-1988 elections, similar to the 30-percent Jewish support for the GOP’s Mitt Romney in 2012. The same data shows that across the 1992-2012 elections, Jews voted Republican at an average rate of 22 percent, meaning that Jewish support for the GOP is “still well below what it was in the 1970s and 1980s,” said Sheskin.