GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- It is difficult to obtain a comprehensive portrait of the political characteristics and attitudes of the Jewish population in America. Only about 2% of the adult population identifies itself as Jewish, which yields only 20 to 30 Jewish respondents in the typical sample of 1,000 or 1,500 randomly selected respondents that makes up the usual national Gallup Poll -- too few to break out for analysis purposes.
One way around this situation is to combine surveys taken across a number of different points in time, thus yielding a much bigger overall sample size, and hence concomitantly larger subsamples of low-incidence populations. Along these lines, Gallup recently compiled a large number of Gallup Poll surveys conducted over the last decade. This provided us with an aggregated total of tens of thousands of interviews and therefore enough Jewish respondents to be able to use in a meaningful analysis of their responses to several political and religious questions.
Party Identification
Politically speaking, there is little question that Jews are the most Democratic of the major religious groups in America today, but they are by no means monolithically so.
Of the 408 respondents who identified their religious affiliation as Jewish in 21 separate Gallup surveys conducted over the past year and a half, exactly half give their political orientation as Democratic. About a third say they are independents, and 17% are Republicans. This contrasts with the overall breakdown of the 21,026 respondents interviewed during this period, which is 32% Democrat, 31% independent and 33% Republican.
Protestants tilt slightly more Republican than the national average, while Catholics are slightly more Democratic. Those who say they have no religious affiliation are much more likely to say they are independent than is the average American adult. Still, the Jewish tilt toward Democratic orientation is the most pronounced shift from the national average of any of the major religious groups in the country.
The party identification of Jews appears to be remarkably stable. An analysis of over 30,000 Gallup Poll interviews conducted from 1992 to 2001 shows almost exactly the same distribution of party identification among the Jewish population as is the case in the most recent year and a half: 50% Democrat, 32% independent, 18% Republican.
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Party Identification Within Religious Groups |
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Gallup Polls 1992-2001, 2001-2002 |
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Protestant |
Catholic |
Jewish |
No religion |
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|
1992-2001 |
2001-2002 |
1992-2001 |
2001-2002 |
1992-2001 |
2001-2002 |
1992-2001 |
2001-2002 |
|
|
Party Affiliation |
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Republican |
35% |
39% |
28% |
30% |
18% |
17% |
19% |
18% |
|
Independent |
33 |
27 |
36 |
33 |
32 |
32 |
52 |
47 |
|
Democrat |
33 |
32 |
36 |
35 |
50 |
50 |
29 |
27 |
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Sample Size |
21,608 |
10,344 |
9,808 |
4,967 |
800 |
408 |
2,636 |
1,883 |
Most analyses show that the Jewish vote in presidential elections is strongly likely to go to the Democratic ticket, and that was particularly the case in 2000. The Voter News Service and Los Angeles Times exit polls from the 2000 presidential election show that about eight out of 10 Jewish voters nationally voted for the Gore-Lieberman ticket (compared to about 48% of the national popular vote that went to Gore-Lieberman). Thus, it is clear that a considerable number of Jewish voters who more generally consider themselves independents (and perhaps some who consider themselves Republicans) voted for the Democratic ticket.
We looked at the trends in these party identification data to see if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 had any significant effect on the party identification of the major religious groups. They did not. There was little meaningful change in the ways in which Americans of any religious leaning identified their basic political orientation after Sept. 11.
Ideology
Americans who identify their religion as Jewish are more likely to say they are liberal than are either Protestants or Catholics. The ideological identification of Jews is in fact more similar to those who have no stated religious preference than it is to either of the other two major religious groups.
Still, as can be seen in the table below, the Jewish population in America -- while comparatively more liberal than the national average -- is still not overwhelmingly so. Over half of the Jewish population in America over the past decade identifies itself as either conservative or moderate.
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Ideology Within Religious Groups |
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Gallup Polls 1992-2001 |
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Protestant |
Catholic |
Jewish |
No religion |
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Ideology |
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Conservative |
42% |
34% |
23% |
20% |
|
Moderate |
39 |
45 |
40 |
40 |
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Liberal |
15 |
18 |
33 |
34 |
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Sample Size |
11,853 |
5,397 |
416 |
1,434 |
Bush Approval
Given the Jewish population's significant tilt toward identification with the Democratic Party (and the fact that so few voted for the Bush ticket in 2000), it is not surprising to find that Jews generally give President George W. Bush lower-than-average job approval ratings. But the difference between the Jewish population's ratings of Bush and the rest of the nation's ratings narrowed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
It is well known that the 9-11 attacks resulted in significant changes in President Bush's overall job approval ratings. In selected Gallup Poll surveys conducted prior to Sept. 11 (those in which respondents were also asked about their religious affiliation), the average job approval rating for Bush was 58%. In surveys conducted after Sept. 11 in which respondents were asked to indicate their religion, the average Bush job approval jumped 20 percentage points to 78%.
But as can be seen below, Bush approval went up slightly more among the Jewish population than among either Protestants or Catholics. The increase was 19 percentage points among Protestants, 24 points among Catholics, and 30 points among Jews. Thus, while the difference between Jews and Protestants in Bush approval was 26 percentage points in the surveys conducted before Sept. 11, 2001, it narrowed to only 15 percentage points in the surveys conducted after the terrorist attacks. The same general pattern of narrowing differences in this approval number occurred between Catholics and Jews.
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Bush Job Approval |
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Combined Gallup Poll Surveys 2001-2002* |
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*Note: This table contains selected surveys in which the religious identification measure was included |
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Protestant |
Catholic |
Jewish |
No religion |
|
|
% |
% |
% |
% |
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Bush Job Approval |
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Pre-Sept. 11 |
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Approve |
62 |
58 |
36 |
45 |
|
Disapprove |
27 |
31 |
54 |
39 |
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No opinion |
11 |
12 |
10 |
16 |
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Post-Sept. 11 |
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|
Approve |
81 |
82 |
66 |
63 |
|
Disapprove |
15 |
14 |
30 |
30 |
|
No opinion |
4 |
4 |
4 |
7 |
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2001-2002 Total |
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Approve |
74 |
74 |
56 |
58 |
|
Disapprove |
19 |
20 |
38 |
32 |
|
No opinion |
7 |
6 |
6 |
10 |
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Sample Size |
10,344 |
4,967 |
408 |
1,883 |
Measures of Religiosity
In addition to the political variables discussed above, the large number of interviews compiled across the last decade provides us with the opportunity to look at how several religious measures vary across the religious groups. One basic conclusion is evident from the resulting analysis: Americans who identify themselves as Jewish in general score lower on various measures of religiosity than either Protestants or Catholics do. Jews are less likely to say that religion is important in their daily lives, less likely to be members of a religious congregation, and less likely to attend religious services than are those who identify themselves as either Protestant or Catholic.
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Religious Indicators Within Religious Groups |
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Gallup Polls 1992-2001 |
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Protestants |
Catholics |
Judaism |
No religion |
|
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Importance of Religion in Your Daily Life |
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|
Very important |
65% |
54% |
33% |
23% |
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Sample Sizes |
12,901 |
6,016 |
456 |
1,464 |
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Member of Church/Synagogue? |
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Yes |
72% |
77% |
58% |
14% |
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Sample Sizes |
12,682 |
5,872 |
439 |
1,415 |
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Church or Synagogue Attendance |
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|
Yes, in last seven days |
43% |
47% |
27% |
10% |
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Sample Sizes |
12,332 |
5,773 |
430 |
1,387 |
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General Church or Synagogue Attendance |
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Usually attend almost every week or more often |
47% |
47% |
17% |
6% |
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Sample Sizes |
13,352 |
6,035 |
494 |
1,491 |
Survey Methods
The results reported here are based on telephone interviews with randomly selected national samples of adults, 18 years and older, conducted from 1992 to 2002. Generally speaking, for results based on large samples of 1,000 or more, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points. For results based on smaller sample sizes of 400 to 800, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±4%-6%. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.