Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes the stage at a rally at the Coliseum in St. Petersburg, Fla. | AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Poll: Clinton holds 43-point lead over Trump among Florida's Jewish voters Clinton is leading Trump, 66-23 percent

Democrat Hillary Clinton holds a massive lead over Republican Donald Trump, according to a poll of Jewish voters in Florida, who rank domestic issues ahead of foreign affairs in importance and reject any plan to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

The poll of 500 Florida Jewish voters, released Friday, shows Clinton with a 43-percentage-point lead over Trump, 66-23 percent. The margin of error: 4.4 percentage points.


Although Jewish voters represent a minority of Florida’s 12.3 million voters, they play an influential in a state where the past four elections have been decided by a single percentage point or less.

The level of support, say the pollsters, closely mirrors Jewish support of Democrats dating back to the early 1970s.

“Despite the quadrennial cry that ‘this will be the year that Republicans will win Jewish voters,’ and television crews inevitably rushing to South Florida to interview a handful of Jewish voters who support the Republican candidate, the data show that Florida Jewish voters remain a solid and unwavering base constituency for Democrats,” said GBA Strategies pollster Jim Gerstein in a statement.

He said a minority of Jewish voters, about one in four in Florida and nationwide, identify as “ideological conservatives.”

Unlike other polls, Clinton’s favorable rating among Jewish voters is not a problem. The poll found 57 percent viewed her favorably, 33 percent unfavorably. Trump’s favorability was far worse. Only 21 percent see him as favorable; 71 percent unfavorably.

“Trump’s messages, both positive and negative, fell uniformly flat with Florida’s Jewish electorate,” the pollsters said.

Florida Jews told pollsters that the important issues most influencing their vote: the economy, ISIS, and the selection of future Supreme Court nominees. The issue of Israel ranked near the bottom of the list, with only 8 percent naming it one of their top two issues. It was ninth out of 13 issues, a trend consistent with polling done over the last decade.

“For Jewish voters, Israel is a threshold voting issue. Once candidates demonstrate that they are supportive of Israel, voters move on to consider other issues that more directly affect their daily lives,” said Gerstein.

The poll found that Florida Jews had “strong objections” to Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. One in three opposed it; only 19 percent supported it.

“For Jews, the sense of ourselves as strangers in a strange land is etched not only in our texts, but in our collective memory, as immigrants many of whom came to this country fleeing anti-Semitic oppression and violence,” said Alex Soros, chair of Bend the Arc Jewish Action, in a statement accompanying the poll. “History has taught us where divisive and xenophobic rhetoric can lead.”

Opinions of Orthodox Jews, who lean far more conservative than other Jewish groups, identify more with Republicans (67 percent) and consider Israel (46 percent) as one of their of their top voting priorities, the poll shows. A significant majority, 66 percent, support Trump’s candidacy and “show little chance of changing in this election,” said the pollsters.

Said Gerstein: “Voters are locked in along partisan lines, which heavily favors Secretary Clinton in this highly Democratic constituency."

He said the Clinton campaign's main focus in Florida "should be maximizing Jewish turnout.”

In 2012, President Barack Obama won the Jewish vote by 37 points. That year, about 500,000 voters — about 5 percent of all voters — were Jewish.

On Saturday, the Republican Jewish Coalition said the poll results "confirms again that [Florida] Jews continue to flee the Democrat Party in greater and greater numbers."

"Four years after President Obama received the lowest amount of support from Jewish voters in decades, Democrats should be panicked to see Hillary Clinton falling even further behind,” said Matt Brooks, the RJC's executive director, in an email to POLITICO Florida.

"Due to President Obama and Clinton’s policies, voters have seen the world fall into chaos as well as the erosion of our close alliance with Israel," he said.

Read the full results and analysis of the "Florida Jewish Vote" poll here: http://bit.ly/2bmD9eQ

UPDATED Saturday morning with a statement from Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks.