Posted by
J-GOP on Monday, December 17, 2007 4:57:44 PM
According to an article in the Jewish Daily, The Forward, Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are the top two hopefuls among American Jewish voters that were recently polled in a survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee.
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 self-identified American Jews between November 6 and November 25, presents the Jewish community as being somewhat out of step with the broader American electorate. According to the survey results, Clinton garnered a “favorable” rating from 53% of all respondents. The senator’s onetime rival and fellow New Yorker, former Republican mayor Rudy Giuliani, was viewed favorably by 40% of the survey’s participants — a result far higher than the 15% who considered themselves members of the GOP, and slightly better than those posted overall by Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards.
Among Jewish Democrats, Clinton won a favorable rating from 70%, compared with 48% for Edwards and 45% for Obama. In comparison, Clinton was rated as favorable by 68% of Democrats nationwide, versus 36% for Edwards and 54% for Obama, according to a poll released Tuesday by The New York Times and CBS News.
Giuliani scored a favorable rating from three-quarters of Jewish Republicans — a score that far exceeds the favorable rating he won from 41% of Republicans nationally in the Times/CBS poll. Given the high proportion of Democrats in the AJCommittee’s survey sample — 58% — Giuliani’s overall favorability rating of 40% suggests he could win votes from a significant number of Jewish voters should he advance to the general election.
Here's an important point: The former New York City mayor is estimated to have won at least two-thirds of the Jewish vote during his successful runs for office in 1993 and 1997 — far greater than the 19% and 24% captured nationwide by President Bush in 2000 and 2004.
Overall, the results show a clear advantage for Clinton and Giuliani among Jewish voters. At the same time, other candidates continue to draw from larger pools of currently undecided voters. For example, whereas less than 20% of Jewish Americans said they were currently unable to form an opinion about Clinton, slightly more than 35% have yet to make up their minds about Obama and Edwards.