GOP presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump has moved into the lead among Jewish voters in deep-blue New York.
According to a Siena Research Institute poll released Tuesday, Trump gathered the support of 50% of likely Jewish New York voters, a slight lead over Vice President Kamala Harris, who garnered the selection of 49% of respondents.
While Trump’s lead is slim, it marks a drastic change from the former president’s prospects against President Joe Biden, who led Trump among likely Jewish voters in June, 52% to 46%, in the state.
However, the race has dramatically changed since the last poll. Biden decided to opt out of the race last month and endorse Harris immediately, who rapidly worked to secure the Democratic nomination.
Harris’s journey to the top of the Democratic ticket comes as some Israeli supporters have worried her support for the Jewish state has begun to subside, with some arguing that she has distanced herself from the Biden administration since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
VP Harris became the first official in the administration to call for an “immediate cease-fire” to the conflict in March. She additionally became the first administration official to warn of “consequences” for Israel if it continued with a planned invasion of Rafah, a city in Gaza, in an interview with ABC News later in the month.
Harris has additionally faced questions about her relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, most significantly after she dodged questions about whether he had become an “obstacle to peace.”
“I believe that we have got to continue to enforce what we know to be and should be the priorities in terms of what is happening in Gaza,” said Harris in response. “We’ve been very clear that far to omany innocent Palestinians have been killed. We have been very clear that Israel and the Israeli people and Palestinians are entitled to an equal amount of security and dignity.”
Poll was taken just before Walz was announced as Harris’s running mate
The poll happened just before Harris chose Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the only Jewish candidate being considered.
The move spurred some to speculate that the choice was made as a result of Shapiro’s unpopularity with Democratic Party members, who have taken a more sympathetic approach to Palestinians since the start of the war in Gaza.
Nonetheless, Jewish voters have traditionally supported Democratic candidates for decades. According to an American Enterprise Institute analysis, Jewish voters have supported Democrats over Republicans by an average margin of 71% to 26% since 1968.
Jewish voters supported now-President Joe Biden over Trump 68% to 30% in 2020, while in the 2016 election, the same group chose Hillary Clinton over Trump by a margin of 71% to 26%.
However, the polls weren’t terrible news for Harris, who firmed up her lead over Trump among all likely voters in New York. According to the Tuesday poll, VP Harris now leads Trump 53% to 39% among likely voters, a significant improvement from the eight—to 10-point lead Joe Biden had in prior versions of the poll.
The Siena College Research Institute poll was conducted between July 28 and August 1 and polled 1,199 likely voters in New York, 8% of whom were Jewish. The survey’s margin of error is +/—4.0 percentage points.
