RJC Says Trump Won Historic Gain of Jewish Vote in Webinar

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) held a post-election webinar on November 4 claiming that President Donald Trump won a historic amount of the Jewish vote for as a Republican on November 3, particularly in Florida.

The webinar, hosted by RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks and National Chairman Norm Coleman, featured pollsters Jon Lerner and John McLaughlin discussing exit polling data. Lerner started with exit polling data from Basswood Research and McLaughlin Associates showing that Trump garnered around 30.5% of the Jewish vote. He said that similar data from The New York Times and Associated Press substantiate their findings.

“No Republican presidential candidate has gotten as high [among Jewish voters] as President Trump did this year since 1988, and in fact, Republicans hit a low point in 1992 with 11% of the vote,” Lerner said. “Four years ago, [Trump] only had 24%, so this is a substantial increase both for President Trump himself as compared to four years ago and by any sort of measure of historical account for Republican presidential performance among Jewish voters, so very gratifying for the RJC and the Trump campaign.”

Lerner added that exit polls showed that Trump won 41% of the Jewish vote in Florida, a state that has a significant Jewish population. Several news outlets have projected that Trump won Florida.

The McLaughlin Associates polling data showed that the main issue that drove Jewish voters was the character of the candidates at 47.3%, followed by the economy at 20.3%, the COVID-19 pandemic at 19.1% and Israel and foreign policy at 8%.

Of those in the 8% category, Trump won 87% to 6%, Lerner said, declaring that category as “nearly a shutout.” He added that Trump also won 71% to 17% among Jewish voters that cared about the economy, but Biden won overwhelmingly among Jewish voters whose main issues were the pandemic and the character of the candidates.

McLaughlin also pointed out that about a third of eligible Jewish voters voted on Election Day; of those voters, Trump won 51% to 41% among those voters.

about a third of eligible Jewish voters voted on Election Day; of those voters, Trump won 51% to 41% among those voters.

“It was really an important part of the Trump effort that we saw the surge in the last few days of the campaign where we knew if we could get that vote out on Election Day, that the president would win and it was important to him winning Florida,” McLaughlin said. “I know working for Lee Zeldin that it was important for him to get out that vote in New York and I’ve had other candidates win in areas where the president was able to win and they did so standing on the shoulders on President Trump where he either had coattails or he actually built a foundation that he could win.”

During the Q&A, a reporter asked the pollsters about J Street’s exit poll, which showed that 77% of American Jews voted for former Vice President Joe Biden and only 21% voted for Trump. Lerner said that while he hadn’t looked at J Street’s poll, he speculated that J Street undercounted Orthodox Jews in their survey. McLaughlin said the J Street survey had 51% of its demographic as liberal where as the McLaughlin poll only had 41%.