WASHINGTON — Jewish support for President Bush is high, but whether it will translate into sustained support for the Republican Party is up for debate.
Jews give the president an approval rating of nearly 80 percent, according to a survey released Dec.12 by the Republican Jewish Coalition.
If the election were held today, the survey found, more Jews would vote for Bush — 42 percent — than for former presidential candidate Al Gore, who received 39 percent support.
In the 2000 election, Gore got 79 percent of the Jewish vote to Bush’s 19 percent.
The new survey puts Bush’s approval rating among Jews at 90 percent among Republicans, 89 percent for Independents, and 72 percent among Democrats polled.
Republican activists were quick to hail the results as a shift of Jewish political sentiment, but Democrats cast doubt on the survey’s significance.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who conducted the poll for the RJC, said the survey suggests a possible political realignment within the Jewish community.
“Despite conventional wisdom, Jewish voters are no longer a lock in the Democratic column,” Luntz said, speaking on behalf of the RJC.
Observers across the political spectrum did not find Bush’s approval ratings surprising; every president is buoyed in times of national crisis.
Bush also has gained favor recently in the eyes of many American Jews with his war against terrorism, his support for Israel and his pressure on the Palestinians to crack down on terror.
But some say that makes the survey an unfair snapshot of a president at his peak, rather than a clear indication of major political shifts among Jews.
Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, called the survey a “publicity stunt” and said the realignment was a “gross exaggeration.”
“Every year we hear the magic word ‘realignment,'” said Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. He said aspects of the survey were “hokum” and sounded “bogus,” adding that the survey appeared to draw conclusions from statistically insignificant samples.
The survey of 400 Jewish voters was conducted Nov. 28-29. The margin of error was 4.9 percent.
Among the key findings:
*Two-thirds approve of the way Bush has handled U.S.-Israeli relations;
*Nearly 80 percent approve of Bush’s policy toward Yasser Arafat;
*Some 27 percent said Bush’s performance makes them more likely to vote for other Republicans, 28 percent said less likely, and 35 percent said no difference.
Luntz said the results show that Republicans need an active and sustained outreach in the Jewish community, and noted that young Jewish voters are “up for grabs.”
It was not clear what impact Bush’s present support might mean for the future of his presidency or the Republican Party.
Democrats should be warned but not alarmed by the survey, said Hyman Bookbinder, the former longtime American Jewish Committee representative in Washington.
Bush deserves to gain politically in the Jewish community because he has done the right thing regarding Israel and the war on terrorism, Bookbinder said, but it’s too soon to count votes for the next elections.
Bookbinder questioned results showing more favorable ratings for Bush’s domestic agenda, saying people were not really focused on domestic issues now. Republican positions on domestic issues such as abortion and school prayer have alienated Jewish voters in the past.
In the survey, 42 percent approve of Bush’s handling of domestic issues such as education and social security, but 47 percent disapprove.
In the past, only 20 to 25 percent of Jewish voters have supported a Republican domestic agenda, according to the pollsters.
The Jewish community has been moving in a conservative direction for some time, according to Murray Friedman, director of the Feinstein Center of American Jewish History at Temple University and director of the mid-Atlantic region for the AJCommittee.
Democrats say the results of the 2000 election show how strong the Democratic base is in the Jewish community.
But what’s important about the approval ratings in this week’s survey is that Bush is seen as a leader, according to Marshall Breger, who served in the Reagan administration and is now a law professor at Catholic University in Washington.
“Even if the numbers go down, he’s still a leader and president in his own right,” Breger said.