Poll: Florida Jewish voters favor Clinton 66-23 over Trump

George Bennett

With most polls pointing toward a close race between Hillary Clinton and Don- ald Trump in crucial Florida, Palm Beach County figures to be a key battleground — again — in the quadrennial national fight over the Jewish vote.

Florida Jewish voters favor Clinton over Trump by a 66-to23 percent margin, according to a poll released Friday by a Democratic firm. The Republican Jewish Coalition insists that’s actually good news for part-time Palm Beach resident Trump because the same poll- ster, GBA Strategies, found President Barack Obama getting 68 percent of the Florida Jewish vote in his narrow 2012 re-election.

Republicans have no realistic hope of winning the Jewish vote in Florida or nationally. The national Jewish vote went 79 percent for Al Gore in 2000, 74 percent for John Kerry in 2004, 78 percent for Obama in 2008 and 69 percent for Obama in 2012, according to the Pew Research Center.

But shaving even a few points off of Obama’s 2012 Jewish support could make a difference in perennially close Florida, which the president carried by only 0.9 percent on his way to re-election.

Jewish voters are about 5 percent of the Florida electorate, GBA and other pollsters estimate. GBA says 31 percent of the state’s Jewish voters live in Palm Beach County, with 17 percent in Broward County and 12 percent in Miami-Dade.

Clinton’s approval ratings have been underwater in many Florida polls, including ones in which she’s leading Trump. But 57 percent of Florida Jewish voters have a favorable view of her, with only 33 percent holding an unfavorable opinion.

Only 21 percent of Florida