What do American Jews think of Israel, abortion and Trump? - survey

Jewish voters overwhelmingly support US President Joe Biden over Republican presidential candidate, former president Donald Trump, the non-partisan Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI) found in a recently published national survey conducted on United States-based Jewish voters in 2023, on June 23. 

The survey collected data from 800 self-described Jewish voters and collected information on how Jewish voters feel about issues relating to democracy, abortions, and guns among other issues.

The participant population was comprised of 49% men, 50% women, and 1% identifying as another gender. 37% of the participants identified as reform, 17% as conservative, 9% as orthodox, 31% as non-denominational, and 2% as reconstructionists.

There were notable differences in how Jews of different denominations rated issue priority.

Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, and non-denominational Jews were most concerned with the future of democracy. Orthodox Jews were most concerned with inflation and the economy. Orthodox Jews rarely felt like guns and abortion access were high-priority issues.

Across all sections, the debt limit was rated as the issue of the lowest importance. 

Biden vs Trump

With the upcoming US Presidential election in mind, participants were asked about their political inclinations. 

67% of participants expressed support for US President Joe Biden. 19% of participants were favorable of presidential candidate Donald Trump, while 80% actively disapproved of Trump.

Ultimately, 72% said that they would vote for Biden, 22% for Trump and 7% were unsure of who they would vote for. 

Orthodox participants showed the greatest amount of support for Donald Trump, with 76% of would-be Trump voters identifying as Orthodox. Orthodox participants also had the lowest support for Biden, with only 12% saying that they would vote for him in an election.

Reform and non-denominational participants showed the lowest levels of Trump support, with only 13% and 16% of participants from this background saying that they would vote for Trump. These groups had the highest support of Biden, with reform voters making up 75% of would-be Biden voters and non-denominational making up 73%.

Men were also more likely to vote for Trump at 27%, compared to women's 16%.

American diaspora's support for Israel

72% of the respondents felt emotionally attached to the state of Israel. Broken down into specific denominations 95% of conservative Jews felt emotionally attached to Israel, 87% of Orthodox Jews, 75% of Reform Jews and 52% of non-denominational Jews. 

When it came to Israel's leadership, 62% of the participants said they had an unfavorable perception of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Of those that were somewhat aware of the proposed judicial reform, 61% of participants said that they believed the proposed reform would weak Israel's democracy. 24% of the participants felt the judicial reform would not impact Israeli democracy and a minority of 15% felt that the reform would strengthen Israeli democracy.

Opinions on the legality of abortion

88% of the Jewish participants expressed that they believed that abortion should be legal, a further 80% of participants were concerned that women no longer have the constitutional right to have an abortion. 

97% of Reform participants believed that abortion should be legal, while only 30% of Orthodox participants believed that abortion should be legal.