New polling conducted ahead of national midterm elections suggests that Donald Trump is far more unpopular with US Jews than he is among Americans generally, with three quarters of American Jews viewing him unfavourably.
A survey conducted by the Mellman Group on behalf of the Jewish Electoral Institute, a new group founded by Jewish Democrats, showed Mr Trump’s favourability rating at just 23 per cent among US Jews, with 76 per cent viewing him unfavourably.
By contrast, Mr Trump enjoys a favourability rating of 42 per cent from Americans as a whole.
The polling showed the Jewish community disapproving of Mr Trump’s handling of almost every policy issue, with 70 per cent or more viewing unfavourably his handling of domestic issues including gun control, healthcare, the environment, Supreme Court nominations, immigration and antisemitism.
The only area in which a majority of Jews view Mr Trump’s actions favourably are with regard to US-Israel relations, and even there by the narrowest of majorities: 51 to 49 per cent favourable/unfavourable.
Only six per cent of Jewish voters said that Mr Trump’s Israel policy would make them consider voting for him despite their disagreements with him on other issues.
By contrast, 20 per cent agreed with the statement that they “support President Trump’s policy on Israel, but disagree with him on too many other important issues, so will not consider voting for him.”
Seven in 10 said they would not consider voting for Mr Trump in 2020.
The figures were in sharp contrast to how Israeli Jews view Mr Trump. Polling published by Haaretz in July found 49 per cent of Israelis in strong approval of the US leader, with only 22 per cent disapproving of him.
The Mellman group poll of US Jews also also showed that 92 per cent described themselves as pro-Israel, although 59 per cent are critical of at least some of the Israeli government’s policies.
But just 52 per cent said that “whether the candidate supports Israel” is at least “very important” to them, ranking well below a number of other issues, including “the kind of Supreme Court
