Gallup: U.S. Jews Still More Supportive of Obama than Christians

By Aaron J. Leichman, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, October 03, 2009

Among America's four largest faith groups, Jews are most likely to approve of the job that Barack Obama is doing as president, according to the results of a new Gallup poll analysis.

For the month of September, 64 percent of U.S. Jews tracked by Gallup Daily expressed their approval of Obama – 10 points higher than the next highest group, Catholics. Only 47 percent of Protestant Christians, meanwhile, said they approved of the job that Obama is doing and 32 percent of Mormons said the same.

Among atheists, agnostics, and those without a religion, 65 percent gave their approval.

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"President Obama enjoys staunch support from U.S. Jews – much higher than what he earns from Catholics and Protestants, particularly with regard to non-Hispanic whites," reported the Gallup organization while noting that support for Obama among U.S. Jews has trended downward since January as the national average has.

"American Jews' solid backing of Obama stands in contrast to Jewish opinion in Israel, where many are still taking stock of the new American president and trying to determine his long-term policy intentions for the Mideast," it added.

Gallup further noted that a recent poll of Jews in Israel, sponsored by the Jerusalem Post, found only 4 percent believing Obama's policies are "pro-Israel" and 35 percent calling them evenly balanced, while 51 percent said they are "pro-Palestinian."

By contrast, a previous survey found 88 percent of Israelis believing George W. Bush's policies were "pro-Israel."

"For Israeli Jews, Obama's position toward their country is clearly of central importance to how they view Obama," the Gallup organization stated.

Though Muslims were not included in its latest analysis, as it covered only those religious groups constituting at least one percent of the U.S. population, Gallup did suggest that U.S. Muslim support for Obama would likely be quite high as an earlier poll revealed it to be higher than even that of Jews.

In May, when U.S. Jewish support for Obama was at 79 percent, U.S. Muslim support was at 85 percent.

According to Gallup's latest analysis, only 52 percent of Americans in general approve of the job Obama is doing as president, down one point from the month before and five points the month before that. In January, that figure stood at 66 percent.