Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on as he holds a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, US, July 29, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario

US Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, currently holds a narrow lead with Jewish voters over her Republican opponent, former US President Donald Trump, in the 2024 presidential election, a new poll has found.

Jewish voters prefer Harris over Trump, the Republican Party’s nominee, by a margin of 52.7 percent to 45.9 percent, according to the survey conducted by pollster Richard Baris. The poll indicated a softening of support for Democrats among Jewish voters, potentially stemming from dissatisfaction over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

Jews are a traditionally Democratic-leaning voting bloc. Since 1968, American Jews have supported the Democratic presidential nominee over the Republican nominee on average by a staggering margin of 71 percent to 26 percent, according to Jewish Virtual Library. Jewish voters supported incumbent US President Joe Biden over Trump by a margin of 68 percent to 30 percent in 2020. In 2016, 71 percent of Jewish voters supported Hillary Clinton and only 24 percent supported Trump.

Dwight Eisenhower was the last Republican to receive at least 40 percent of the Jewish vote in 1956.

“Jewish vote is very close. This is something we all need to keep an eye on,” Baris said Wednesday on his online show “People’s Pundit.”

Jewish voters “don’t trust Kamala Harris as much [as Joe Biden] apparently,” continued Baris, the director of Big Data Poll.

Baris suggested that Jewish voters could be upset with what he described as the Biden administration’s “anti-Israel policies,” potentially sparking a partial exodus among this voting bloc to the Republican Party. 

“You gotta remember that even though a lot of the Jewish vote in this country is secular liberal, they still identify as Jewish. That vote is not going as well for Harris as it did for Joe Biden,” Baris added.

Though Biden has repeatedly voiced support for Israel’s right to self-defense, Harris is widely expected to take a more adversarial approach to the Jewish state should she win the election in November. Harris does not have the decades-long relationship with Israeli leaders that Biden has and maintains closer ties to further left-wing Democratic progressives, many of whom have increasingly called for the US to turn away — or at least adopt a tougher approach toward — Israel.

Harris reportedly urged the White House to be more “sympathetic” to Palestinians and take a “tougher” stance against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the war in Gaza. She also did not rule out “consequences” for Israel if it launched a large-scale military offensive to root out Hamas battalions in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, citing humanitarian concerns for the civilian population.

Harris initially called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza before Biden and, according to reports, White House aides forced her in March to tone down a speech that was deemed too harsh on Israel.

Earlier this month, Harris came under fire for skipping Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress to attend a convention for a historically black sorority. Later in the week, Harris met the Israeli premier and reaffirmed Israel’s right to pursue Hamas in Gaza but vowed she “won’t be silent” about Palestinian casualties.

Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) CEO Matt Brooks slammed Harris for not attending Netanyahu’s congressional address. 

“Kamala Harris failed her first test to the Jewish community by choosing to attend a sorority luncheon rather than preside as president of the Senate while one of America’s most important allies address a congressional joint session in a time of war,” Brooks said.

Meanwhile, Trump received criticism this week for saying in an interview on Tuesday that Harris, who is married to a Jewish man, “doesn’t like Jewish people” and seemed to agree with a radio host who called second gentleman Doug Emhoff “a crappy Jew.”

Trump has often derided anti-Israel Jews and Jews who vote for Democrats.

Still, during Trump’s one term as president, he won over many supporters of the Jewish state, especially on the political right, by moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel, and facilitating the Abraham Accords.