Op-Ed: Why Jews Voted for Obama

Aaron Keyak — November 6, 2008 – 6:35 pm | Barack Obama | Democrats | Election 2008 | McCain | Polls Comments (0) Add a comment

Marc R. Stanley, our Chairman, has an op-ed titled, "Why Jews voted for Obama," for JTA. A version of Stanley's piece is also on the Huffington Post and will appear in Jewish newspapers across the country in the coming week.

Here's an excerpt, but you can read the entire piece on the JTA website.

As Election Day drew closer and the Jewish community learned more about the two candidates, polling showed that Obama’s support in the Jewish community increased to between 70 and 74 percent. Ultimately the Jewish community supported the Democratic nominee in overwhelming numbers. According to exit polling from Tuesday’s election, Obama received 78 percent of the Jewish vote – about 25 percent greater than Obama’s percentage of total support nationally. That exceeded everyone’s expectations.

There are two reasons for this performance. First, Jewish voters took a very close look at both candidates in the final 10 weeks of the campaign. Obama’s performance in the debates belied the GOP narrative that he could not be trusted, while McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate undermined his Jewish support.

Second, Jewish Democrats—the National Jewish Democratic Council, along with the Obama campaign and other independent efforts—were better organized than ever.

Every four years, like a broken record, we are subjected to the refrain from Republicans that “this is gong to be the year the Jewish community votes Republican”—but it never proves true. Somewhat prophetically, Ethan Porter of The New Republic got it right last week when he reported that “the fear that Jews might desert the Democratic Party comes up every four years" but "this theory might finally be put to bed.”

Indeed, as it has for the last three decades, the theory that Jewish voters would significantly support the Republican nominee again has been discredited.

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