President-elect Donald Trump appears to have underperformed among Jewish voters according to initial exit polls, but made massive gains among other minority groups.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
Vice President Kamala Harris won the overwhelming majority of votes cast by American Jews in battleground states in Tuesday’s election, and potentially outperforming every Democratic candidate in the past two decades, initial exit polls indicate.
Harris is projected to lose the election not only in the electoral college, but potentially also in the popular vote, where she currently trails by over five million votes.
According to preliminary exit poll data collected by the Edison Research firm on behalf of multiple media outlets, including the Washington Post and NBC News, 79% of American Jews voted for the vice president, compared to just 21% who voted for former President Donald Trump.
If correct, the initial estimate would place Harris ahead of every Democratic presidential candidate since then-Vice President Al Gore ran against George W. Bush in 2000, winning 79% of the Jewish vote to Bush’s 19%.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, no candidate has received more than 79% since Bill Clinton in 1992.
At the same time, Harris underperformed, among other minority groups, including blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, and American Indians.
While the vast majority of African Americans voted for Harris, the Democratic share of the black vote fell from 87% in 2020 exit polls to 86%.
The drop was far more pronounced among Hispanic/Latino voters, with Trump receiving 45% of the Hispanic/Latino vote, compared to 32% in 2020, while Harris received 53%, down from 65% for Joe Biden four years earlier.
American Indians backed Trump by a nearly two-to-one margin, 64% to 35%, while those in the “Other” category were more evenly divided, 50% backing Trump compared to 45% who backed Harris, according to the exit polls.
White Evangelical Christians backed Trump over Harris by a margin of 81% to 17%.
One caveat in the data is that the preliminary exiting polling is based on the results in ten key battleground states.
While the difference between national results and the combined results from those ten battleground states may be minor for some demographic groups, it leaves out the bulk of the Orthodox Jewish population, centered around New York and New Jersey, potentially skewing the results in favor of Harris and against Trump.
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