US Jews voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, defying national trend

American Jewish voters overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates in this week's midterm elections, a poll has found.

Sixty-nine percent of Jewish voters supported the Democratic Party candidates and only 28 percent cast their vote for Republicans, a poll conducted among 800 Jewish voters who voted this Tuesday commissioned by the liberal Jewish organization J Street found.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, however, cited exit polls that it said showed that Republicans were getting increasing support among Jewish voters, while the Jewish community’s support for Democrats continued to erode. The difference between the two polls was not large: the Republican Jewish Coalition reported that 33 percent of Jewish voters gave their support to Republicans, with 65 percent going to Democrats.

According to the J Street survey, American Jews are somewhat critical of Israeli settlements in the West Bank but overwhelmingly supportive of Israel's Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Their attitude towards Prime Minister Netanyahu is more favorable than to most other American political personalities, according to 'Haaretz'.

Asked for their opinion of a nuclear agreement with Iran, 84 percent said they would support it if Iran's uranium enrichment is restricted inspectors are placed at Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The poll also found that 85 percent of American Jews would support an “active” American role in trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and 80 percent of respondents said they supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Twenty-eight percent of those polled said Israel should suspend all settlement activity in the West Bank, and another 52 percent said that it should do so only outside “core settlement blocs.”