In Contention

Stats aside, the Jewish vote will continue to be targeted by the main political parties.

RON KAM PEAS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Washington
he past four years have seen a defining terror-
ist attack, a divisive war and a radically differ-
ent economy. • But at the ballot box, it
seemed, not much had changed:
Election night produced pretty much the same
electoral map, pretty much the same angry, polarized
nation and pretty much the same anxious obse s sion
with a single state and how it counts its ballots.
And Jews, for their part, voted pretty much the way
they did four years ago.
Expectations that Republicans would make inroads
into decades of Jewish support for the Democratic
Party ran into a wall of Jewish votes for Sen. John
Kerry of Massachusetts. President Bush's unprece-
dented closeness to Israel and his reputation for
toughness on terrorism did little to shake the tradi-
tional 3-1 Jewish break for Democrats.
Two national exit polls showed that Bush gained
only slightly more than the 19 percent of the Jewish
vote he scored in 2000: One, from the Associated
Press, split Kerry-Bush 77-23 percent; another, from
CNN, went 76-24.
A phone poll by pollster Frank Luntz in Florida
and Ohio, two battleground states, split the vote 72-
25 in Kerry's favor, suggesting that the Bush cam-
paign's blitz in those states in the final days might
have had a small degree of success.
But local networks said both Florida and New York
split the Jewish vote, with 80 percent for Kerry, 20
for Bush.

Kerry/Bush Jewish Votes

T

Role Debated

Luntz's poll also showed a strong Orthodox trend
toward Bush, with 69 percent of Orthodox respon-
dents in Florida and Ohio saying they voted for the
president. That conforms with earlier data in
American Jewish Committee polling.
Despite the unprecedented resources by both cam-
paigns devoted to swaying the Jewish vote, in the end
it was doubtful that Jewish voters played a central role
in determining the outcome in any of the swing
states.
Republican jubilation at Bush's showing was more
muted among his Jewish supporters. "It's not ade-
quate from my point of view," said Ed Koch, a for-
mer mayor of New York City who stumped hard for
Bush among Jews from Iowa to Florida. Koch, a
Democrat who said Bush deserved Jewish votes
because of his unstinting support for Israel, sounded a
familiar Republican Jewish theme: The president
deserves Jewish gratitude.
"I'm glad it was an improvement," Koch told JTA,
but added, "I think he deserved much more."
It was a theme that played out in a flurry of opin-

11/ 5
2004

16

ion columns targeting Jewish readers in the final days
of the campaign. "I believe that more Jews than
expected will vote for President Bush," conservative
Jewish scholar Dennis Prager said in his column last
week. "There is no trait as ugly as ingratitude."
Others said that expecting any voter to cast a ballot
in thanks was unrealistic. "Jews are multi-issue vot-
ers," said Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of the
Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body
for community relations groups.
Rosenthal cited as an example the strength that
evangelical Christians enjoyed in the Bush adminis-
tration and in the Republican-controlled Congress.
"There has been a nervousness on the part of the
organized Jewish community, not just at the national
agency level, but also at the community level, at the
close association with evangelical values," she said.
Concerns about keeping the church out of state
affairs figured large in questionnaires returned to
American Jewish Committee pollsters in four swing
states where both parties had targeted the Jewish
community in an ad blitz. "People voting for Kerry
cited domestic policy, church-state separation, abor-
tion, stem-cell research, Supreme Court nominations
and President Bush's leadership qualities," said David
Harris, the AJCommittee's executive director.
The increasingly tangled Iraq war and an economy
dogged by joblessness also figured in the pro-Kerry
vote among Jews. "Where the Bush campaign failed
with the Jewish vote was to swing the undecided,
because the Bush campaign had not tacked to the
center," Harris said.
Jews supporting Bush cited his support for Israel
and his tough stance against terrorism in the wake of
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and
Washington, Harris said. Those were the themes
Republicans hammered in advertising and campaign
blitzes in swing states.
The campaigning might have made a difference.
Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster who conducted
the phone survey in Ohio and Florida showing a 72-
25 split in Kerry's favor, said the improvement from

2000 helped put Bush over the top in both states. "It
wasn't the margin of victory, but it contributed to
the margin of victory," he said.
"With President Bush winning re-election, Jews
for George would like to thank the Detroit Jewish
community for standing up for what they believe in
on both sides of this sometimes contentious elec-
tion," said Moe Freedman, director of communica-
tions for the Oak Park-based Jews for George. "Both
sides of the political aisle now know that the Jewish
vote is not something they can take for granted, and
the Jewish community is all the stronger for it.
"Our sincere hope is that all the 'Jews for George'
and all the 'Jews for John' will return to being what
we've been all along: `Jews for Jews.'"

Minds Changed

Harris said the small minority of voters who changed
their vote from 2000 tended overwhelmingly to
switch from Kerry to Bush — and also tended to cite
terrorism and Israel as reasons for their switch.
Republicans were especially determined in Ohio.
Party activists urged Orthodox Jews to get out the
vote, knowing that the community trends heavily to
Republicans. Yehiel Kalish organized babysitting and
bussing for Orthodox communities in Cleveland and
Cincinnati. "The turnout was phenomenal," he said.
Another group trending strongly to Bush was the
Russian Jewish community, Harris said. An
AJCommittee Election Day survey among Russian
Jews in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey
showed a 75-25 split for Bush. Respondents tended
to explain their vote by citing Bush's strong leadership
qualities.
Such trends encouraged Republicans to look
beyond their disappointment at what was only a small
Jewish shift toward Bush. "We know the demograph-
ic shift favors us: The more senior are more loyal to
the Democrats, but the younger have open minds,"
said Matt Brooks, executive director of the
Republican Jewish Coalition.
He said the comparison should not be to the 19
percent of the Jewish vote that Bush won in 2000,
but to the 11 percent his father won in 1992.
Luntz agreed, saying his polling showed higher
Republican support among younger Jews. "The
Republicans will need to be patient, but their out-
reach strategy will pay off," he said.
Democrats scoffed, noting that the results fell well
short of the 30 percent Luntz had predicted just
months ago, and the 40-plus percent that Brooks had
predicted three years ago.
They said Bush's performance was especially weak
considering that he did not face a Jewish vice presi-
dential candidate, as he did in 2000 with Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, D-Conn.

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Updated results, www.jewish.com

