A new study, touted as the first-ever state-by-state, county-by-county Jewish population estimate, shows how the Jewish vote could play a crucial role in key battleground states.
Released Sept. 22, the study found that in Bucks County, Pennsylvania — one of the areas being closely watched this election cycle — Jewish adults make up more than 6 percent of the population.
“That’s three times more than the national” percentage, said research associate Daniel Parmer. “If it’s a tight race, Jewish voters could swing the election” in that county.
Conducted by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University, the study also reveals that Jewish voters — who have a record of higher-than-average turnout at the polls — could have significant impact in Florida’s Palm Beach area, where the 209,400 Jews there make up nearly 15 percent of the adult population.
That number is significant in a state where President Barack Obama won by less than 1 percent in 2012, or 74,309 votes.
Nationwide, the American Jewish Population Project report — utilizing results from the Steinhardt study — estimates that 4.2 million adults identify as Jewish “by religion.” Adding Jewish adults who identify in some other way, plus an estimate for the number of Jewish children, results in an overall population estimate of 7.16 million, or about 1 million more than the Jewish population of Israel.
The estimate of California’s total Jewish population tops 1 million, with the greatest concentration in the area defined as the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin and Sonoma, where Jews are estimated to be 5.99 percent of the population (a Jewish population of 137,800 out of 2.3 million people).
Estimates for other areas in the greater Bay Area show 3.16 percent in Alameda County (50,400 out of 1.6 million), 3.06 percent combined in the counties of Contra Costa, Napa and Solano (51,200 out of 1.7 million) and 2.12 percent combined in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties (46,700 out of 2.2 million). Overall, the estimated numbers for those 11 counties add up to 286,000.
The report is based on population figures from 2015, and includes new data on gender and race, as well as population profiles for major metropolitan areas on the East and West coasts and in Chicago.
Regarding American Jews’ party identification, the study finds that 54 percent of American Jews identify as Democrats, while 14 percent identify as Republicans. But only 43 percent of American Jews call themselves liberal, a lower percentage than those who say they are Democrats.
“We see a higher proportion of Jews who identify as Democrats but a lower proportion [who say they] have liberal political views,” Parmer said. “Conversely, there are more Jews who identify as conservative [21 percent] than Jewish Republicans.”
The results also show that 36 percent of American Jews consider themselves neither liberals nor conservatives, and that 32 percent identify as neither Democrats nor Republicans.
The institute’s director, Leonard Saxe, along with Parmer and the population project’s director, Elizabeth Tighe, talked with JTA about the numbers. Among the most notable findings is the diversity among Jewish millennials — young adults aged 18 to 34. The study puts the number of millennials who identify as Jews “by religion” at 1.4 million.
The study shows a decline in party identification among millennials, with 37 percent saying they identify with neither Democrats nor Republicans. Among those who do identify, 51 percent of millennials say they are Democrats, compared to 56 percent of Jewish adults aged 65 or older who identified as such. Only 12 percent of millennials say they are Republicans.
The study also finds perhaps surprising diversity among younger Jews, with 30 percent identifying as non-white. That’s more than double the figure for Generation X, the generation that preceded the millennials.
In the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin and Sonoma, 12 percent of the Jewish population identifies as non-white; in Alameda County, the figure goes up to 20.3 percent.
Parmer said this has implications for the political issues they care about, like social justice and racial inequality.
The population of Jews who identify by religion is consistent with the 2013 Pew Research Center’s “Portrait of Jewish Americans,” whose results were factored into the study.
“The population is continuing to grow,” Saxe said. If you read media reports, “you might think the sky is falling and that we are continuing to see declines in the Jewish population, and that’s not the case.”
Other highlights of the study include: 57 percent of Jewish adults are college graduates; more than one in 10 Jewish adults identify as people of color; more than 25 percent of Jewish adults are 65 years of age or older; nearly 50 percent of the U.S. adult Jewish population lives in New York (23 percent), California (13 percent) or Florida (13 percent).
The study and updated map is based on nearly 250 independent samples of the U.S. adult population collected from 2008 to 2015. This includes more than 280,000 respondents, of whom nearly 6,000 are Jewish.