American Jews on the presidential race, support for Israel, and the fighting in the north and south

Main Findings

• A rise in the percentage of liberal and centrist Jews who see Kamala Harris as pro-Israel
• A large majority of liberals support the two-state solution;
  an overwhelming majority of conservatives and centrists oppose it
• Jewish Trump voters believe that had he been president, there wouldn’t have been a war in Israel
• A trend among liberals – erosion of the sense of closeness to Israel since the start of the war
• Four in five US Jews say the war in Israel has harmed their sense of security
• A significant decline compared to the start of the war in the proportion who say Israel’s hasbara (public messaging) performance is good
• Conservative (politically and religiously) respondents express higher levels of optimism regarding Israel’s future

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A general note about the survey period: Data was gathered between September 16 and 20, amid a week in which Israel’s security forces racked up a number of successes on the Lebanese front, including striking Hezbollah’s senior echelon: first the pager and walkie-talkie operations (attributed to Israel) and, two days later, the assassination of Ibrahim Aqil, commander of Hezbollah’s elite Redwan Force, during a meeting in a Beirut building. At the same time, the fighting in Gaza continued, and no progress was reported in the hostage release talks. In the US, the survey was conducted after the Harris-Trump presidential debate, and amid a strengthening of the Democratic Party’s nominee’s, Kamala Harris, showing in the polls.

The US Presidential Race

In the past month the US presidential race entered its home stretch: the Democratic Party held its national convention where Vice President Kamala Harris cinched the party’s nomination, and her choice of Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate was approved. After the convention, a first televised debate between Harris and the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, was broadcast to an audience of over 67 million viewers. Also with the potential to impact the election: a second attempt on Donald Trump’s life, and New York Judge Juan Merchan’s decision to postpone sentencing in Trump’s “hush money” case until after the elections.

Survey data shows a slow but continuous upward trend in recent months in the share of self-identified liberal and centrist respondents who say they will definitely vote for Harris. There is similar but less striking trend among conservative-leaning respondents with regard to Trump.

The Candidates and Israel

In the September 10 presidential debate between Kamala Harris (D) and Donald Trump (R), a number of statements about Israel were made by the candidates. JPPI’s Voice of the Jewish People panel respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with some of them.

The vast majority of respondents who self-identify as “strong liberal,” and a majority of those who self-identify as “leaning liberal” agreed (completely or somewhat) with the statement (by Kamala Harris, although the statement was presented without attribution) that the war must “end immediately.”

Most respondents who self-identify as centrist, along with those in the conservative subgroups, completely or somewhat disagreed with the assertion. An overwhelming majority of liberal respondents support (completely or somewhat) a path toward a “two states for two peoples” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By contrast, the vast majority of centrists and conservatives oppose the idea. A similar breakdown can be found on the religiosity scale, from Reform toward the more conservative streams.

Half of the panel respondents who said that they would definitely be voting for Kamala Harris completely agreed with the candidate’s implicit criticism of how Israel defends itself. Most liberals concurred with the criticism (completely or somewhat), while most conservatives and centrists rejected it.

During the debate, Trump said that Harris “hates Israel.” The overwhelming majority of liberal respondents, and most centrist participants, disagreed with that statement. However, half of the leaning conservative, and most of the strong conservative subgroup, agreed (completely or somewhat), with the statement.

Most conservative respondents agreed (completely or somewhat) that had Trump been president, the situation in the Middle East would not have deteriorated into war. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of liberal respondents, and most centrists, did not agree with this statement. By contrast, 80% of those who said they would definitely or likely vote for Trump somewhat or completely agreed with this statement.
The vast majority of all panel respondents disagreed with Trump’s statement that if Harris becomes president “Israel will not exist two years from now.” However, among respondents definitely intending to vote for Trump, the share of those agreeing with this statement (somewhat or completely) is greater than the share disagreeing with it. As expected, the vast majority of liberals and centrists disagreed with the statement. Further, the vast majority of Harris voters completely disagreed with the statement.

Support for Israel

Alongside America’s wartime aid to Israel in the military, diplomatic, and economic spheres, the Biden administration expressed criticism this month of Israel’s conduct in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in general, and particularly in the wake of an American citizen’s death in Jenin from IDF gunfire. Attitudes toward Israel and the way growing antisemitism is being handled in the United States were topics at the Democratic National Convention and in the Harris-Trump debate, and continue to engage both candidates and their campaign staffs.
As was the case in our Voice of the Jewish People surveys of recent months in which we looked at how the respondent panel rates American support for Israel, this month, too, we see a disparity between strong-liberal respondents and the rest of the respondent groups. In most of the groups (including nearly half of those leaning liberal) the dominant response is that the US doesn’t support Israel enough.
As part of a series of questions on the upcoming US presidential election, we looked at respondents’ attitudes regarding the candidates’ views on Israel. As in earlier months, we asked whether the presidential candidates are pro-Israel or not. Among liberal voters, a clear majority of respondents view Harris as pro-Israel. However, an upturn in the assessment of Harris as pro-Israel is evident across all respondent groups, not just among liberalsNo change was found among panel respondents in the percentage of those who believe that Trump is pro-Israel. The share of respondents who believe he is pro-Israel has remained higher than the share who say this of Harris.

The American Political Parties and Antisemitism

Which of the US presidential candidates would perform better in the fight against antisemitism? This question, posed in previous months, was included in this month’s survey as well. Among left-leaning respondents there has been a slow but steady downward trend in the share of those who believe Trump would do better than Harris in combating antisemitism. In terms of religious-stream affiliation, this month showed an additional rise among Reform Jews who think Harris would be better at fighting antisemitism, and a drop in the percentage of those who think Trump would be better. The Orthodox exhibit an opposite trend – the percentage of those who think Harris would be better at fighting antisemitism declined while the share of those who think Trump would be better rose.

Expanding on the question of which candidate would be better at fighting antisemitism, this month we also asked which of the two major US political parties would perform better in this arena. Most of the conservative and half of the centrist respondents feel that the Republican Party would fare better in the struggle against antisemitism.

At the opposite end, in the liberal camp, the responses are not entirely uniform. Most of the strong liberals believe that the Democratic Party would better fight antisemitism, but less than half of liberal-leaning respondents and only a tenth of centrists believe so. When the responses are broken down by religiosity level, members of most subgroups, aside from Reform, think the Republican Party would outdo the Democratic Party in fighting antisemitism. A fifth of respondents across all streams believe that both parties would be equally bad at addressing this challenge.

Sense of Security

Since October 7, antisemitism has proliferated around the world, with voices calling for a boycott of Israel gaining momentum. This phenomenon affects the sense of security of Jews living in the Diaspora. This month, we looked at how secure panel participants feel in their places of residence. We can see that the war in Israel has affected their sense of personal security. Among panel respondents, four in five feel that their personal security has been compromised to some degree.
Compared with a similar question posed two months ago, only slight changes can be detected. Overall, the past few months show some fluctuation in American Jews’ sense of security, but relative to the early days of the war (November 2023) there are no major differences in their sense of security.
Twice since October 7 we have assessed Jews’ sense of connection to Israel via the Voice of the Jewish People respondent panel. Compared with other surveys from the past year, we see that, relative to the start of the war, Jews belonging to the conservative and centrist subgroups currently have a sense of closeness to Israel that is nearly identical to what they felt at the beginning of the war; among the liberal subgroups the sense of closeness to Israel has eroded since the start of the war. In this month’s survey, 38% of respondents in the strong-liberal cohort said that the war was distancing them from Israel (compared to 29% in July).

Israeli Hasbara (Public Messaging)

More than half of the panel participants, from all groups except the strong conservative cohort, feel that Israel’s performance in conveying its side of the story in the war is “very poor” or “somewhat poor.” A similar assessment can also be seen in a breakdown by religious stream. In all streams except the ultra-Orthodox, the prevailing view is that Israel does a “poor” or a “somewhat poor” job in communicating its side of the story.

We have looked at the public messaging issue several times since October 7. A comparison between several months in the past year shows that, relative to the start of the war, there has been a major decline in the share of respondents who think Israel is doing a good job in conveying its side of the story in the war. Since May, responses from all groups have remained virtually unchanged. However, there has been a rise in the percentage of strong conservatives who believe Israel’s public messaging performance is good.

The Future of Israel and the Jews

JPPI’s Israeli Society Index, almost on a monthly basis, examines how confident Israelis (Jews and non-Jews) are that Israel will win the war. A comparison between the findings from the Israeli Society Index and the Voice of the Jewish People survey reveals that a sizeable share of American Jewish respondents exhibit greater confidence in Israel’s ability to win than do Israelis themselves. This is also the case when the only-Jews Israeli sample is compared with the American Jewish respondent sample. However, this finding must be qualified: even after the data on American Jews is weighted by self-identification, the JPPI panel consists of Jews who are relatively “connected” to Israel and the Jewish community, and are therefore not representative of the entire US Jewish population. When we look at the data for the Americans by political orientation, we find that most conservatives and centrists are convinced that Israel will win the war (5 on a scale of 1 to 5), while less than half of liberal respondents are similarly convinced.

* JPPI Israel Society Index, September ’24

When we compare Voice of the Jewish People panel respondents’ degree of optimism about the future of the American Jewish community last July with our September data, we find a certain rise in optimism at both ends of the ideological scale – the strong-liberals and the strong-conservatives.
The further one moves from liberal to conservative on the ideological spectrum, the greater the optimism about Israel’s future. A similar trend can also be seen with regard to religious streams – the further one goes from liberal to conservative, the greater the optimism about Israel.

Survey Data and its Implications

This report is an analysis of a survey administered to 535 American Jews registered for JPPI’s Voice of the Jewish People panel. The report does not provide a weighted value representative of American Jewry as a whole, but the number of panel respondents who self-identify as belonging to various groups enables us to identify trends, views, and differences between Jews based on religious affiliation, emotional attachment to Israel, political orientation, attachment to Judaism, and more.

Generally speaking, this survey tends to reflect the attitudes of US Jews with some connection to the Jewish community, as indicated by a specific question in this regard (which includes data for anyone who stated a connection to some Jewish institution, such as a synagogue, community center, Jewish organization, etc.), as well as Jews with an attachment of some kind to Israel, as reflected in the data on visits to Israel, which are significantly more numerous than the average for all US Jews.

Survey participant data (see table below): About half self-identify as liberal; the percentage of intermarried respondents is significantly lower than the average for US Jews generally; the share of those affiliated with the Conservative religious stream is higher than their share in the American Jewish population as a whole. The percentage of respondents unaffiliated with any religious stream is lower than the average for American Jews.