Of course, anyone familiar with the observant Jewish community knows that it has been strongly Republican for years now. It seems that that tendency is spreading to practicing Jews in general. (The fact that a large majority of Jews voted Democrat in the last election should tell you something about how few are practicing. But that will change.) From Warner Todd Huston (via John Ray):
The man reporting this finding is Democratic candidate John Kerry's pollster, Mark Mellman who, according to a recent L.A.Times article , reported his study results conducted during the 2004 campaign's final month.
Mellman's study found that Americans of all stripes who attended religious services regularly tended to vote Republican far more often than they voted Democratic. His findings among Jewish voters was not as lopsided as that among Christian voters but still the Jewish vote was split down the middle between GOP and Democrat voters. That split is still an amazing new trend in the Jewish community. In fact, George Bush made advances in every Jewish voter category to one degree or another.
Of course, many in the chattering classes on the left have been yelping about the evil "religious right" dominating the Republican Party for a decade now. But they must have been taken aback by this rise in GOP voters among the left's favorite and most reliable voting block, the US Jewish population.
It is becoming clear that Americans who have a strong religious belief, just about any religious belief, are turning to the Republican Party in greater numbers every year.
I think that's correct, and I agree that a big factor uniting religious people of all (many?) types is family values. People understand the macro-workings of the world through the micro-workings of their private lives.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at May 2, 2005 04:18 PM | TrackBacks