Siena College’s latest poll had some interesting results, especially from Jewish voters, long one of the Democrat party’s most reliable demographics. It turns out that Jewish voters don’t like what they see. The poll generally asks like/dislike questions and specific questions about the economy and immigration, but I have to believe that Jews are also worried about the Democrats’ antisemitism problem and Kamala and Biden’s efforts to save Hamas (a Nazi-like terrorist organization) from extinction.

You can see the Siena poll here, but it’s in microscopic font with a bewildering number of rows of information. I’ve broken out the massive shift in Jewish support for Trump and some interesting general findings.

Image: Donald Trump at the Western Wall. YouTube screen grab.

Preliminarily, up to and including 2020, Jews have consistently voted for Democrats—and, as this WaPo report shows, they’ve done so by huge margins. The only exception was for Reagan when long-time Democrat Jewish voters (like my father) were frightened by Carter’s weakness in the face of Iran and his lukewarm support for Israel. And no, it’s not that American Jews put Israel before America. It’s that they know that Israel is the tip of the spear when it comes to Islam’s pressure against the West. If Israel goes, that won’t end things; it will be the beginning. Democrats voted for Reagan again in 1984 because of the stunning economic recovery on his watch.

Just four years ago, in 2020, when Siena conducted a poll of New York voters, that blue state (which last voted for a Republican in 1984) loved Biden. Chief among the Biden supporters were the Jews, who gave Biden a 77% favorability rating while giving Trump only a 20% favorability rating. When asked for whom they’d vote, 74% said for Biden.

A lot can happen in four years. Here are the Jewish voting numbers now:

• As of this week, 52% of Jews have a favorable view of Donald Trump, compared to 48% with an unfavorable view.
• If the election were held today, 54% of Jews would vote for Trump, with 44% voting for Kamala.
• On the economy, 58% of Jewish voters favor Trump compared to the 39% favoring Kamala.
• On abortion, 49% of Jews still favor Kamala compared to 44% favoring Trump.
• On immigration, 58% of Jews favor Trump compared to only 33% for Kamala.
• On democracy in the abstract, despite all the talk about Trump being an existential threat to democracy, Jews favor Trump (53%) over Kamala (45%).
• On Biden’s job performance, only 41% of Jews approve, while 55% disapprove.

Two more things: First, Jews vote. Currently, 73% are certain to vote in November, and 23% are very likely to vote, for a probably 95% turnout. No wonder Trump is actively seeking the Jewish vote.

Second, for those who say that New York’s Orthodox Jewish community votes conservative, that’s true. However, they’re only about 40% of the Jews in New York. The fact that Trump now leads in the state means non-Orthodox Jews are shifting.

Generally speaking (that is, not focusing just on New York’s Jewish voters), New Yorkers aren’t happy with the status quo. While Democrats still like the direction in which the country is heading (49% compared to 35% who are unhappy), nobody else is very pleased. The poll shows that 88% of Republicans think the country is on the wrong track, a view shared by 76% of Independents and others. If these unhappy New Yorkers understand that Kamala is that status quo, that’s bad news for her. Even if they tell pollsters they’re voting for Kamala, we might see a shy Tory effect.

What’s fascinating about all this is that, for decades, abortion was the one flag that Democrats had to wave to get out the vote. That issue, more than any other, drove voters to the polls. I certainly saw that in the community in which I raised my children. My neighbors worked hard, believed in marriage and family, opposed crime, disliked drug use, wanted low taxes... Indeed, in all ways, they were conservative, except on abortion. Say “abortion,” and they were off to vote for the Democrat.

Knowing this, Democrats have been insisting that Trump wants to ban abortions. They say this even though (a) the Dobbs decision means that the federal government no longer has a say in abortions, (b) Trump has explicitly disavowed seeking to ban abortions at the federal level because he says it’s a state matter now, and (c) Trump has explicitly disavowed Project 2025, which seeks stronger abortion laws. Politically, abortion is a dead federal issue, no matter how much the Democrats flog it.

If the data about Jewish voters are to be believed, the Jewish Democrats’ long-standing (and embarrassing) support for abortion is being overridden, temporarily, at least by more pressing concerns about their survival at home and abroad (they’ve witnessed what’s happened at Columbia and NYU), the economy, and open borders. If Israel is the tip of the spear when it comes to Islamic depredations against the West, maybe Jewish voters in New York are the tip of the spear when it comes to Americans’ concern about where Biden has taken this nation and where Kamala will continue to take it.