The postmortem of how Vice President Kamala Harris lost to former President Donald Trump is well underway, with strategists poring over exit polling data and turnout numbers to figure out what happened.
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There is also the finger-pointing and tsk-tsking on the Democratic side that typically accompanies a loss, especially when it’s a blowout in what was thought to be a close race.
One factor that’s ripe for more examination is how various religious groups voted.
In a bid to shake the devotion white Christians have of Trump, Harris pointed out his criminality and profanity. Didn’t work. White evangelical Christian backing of the former president was around 80 percent, according to exit polling data from The Associated Press.
In a bid to assuage Muslim American anger about the Biden-Harris administration’s continued support for Israel as the death toll in Gaza climbs, Harris stepped up calls for a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. Didn’t work.
Muslim Americans followed through on their threat to punish Harris at the polls, backing no-hope third party candidate Jill Stein and even Trump over Harris, according to exit polling data from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Our final exit poll of American Muslim voters confirms that opposition to the Biden administration’s support for the war on Gaza played a crucial role, leading to a sharp drop in support for Vice President Harris compared to the support President Biden received from Muslim voters in 2020, and a sharp rise in support for third party candidate Jill Stein,” CAIR said in a statement. “President-Elect Trump also managed to make in-roads with Muslim voters.”
In registering their unhappiness with the Biden-Harris approach to the Israel-Gaza conflict, Muslim Americans backed a man who won’t do them any favors. Trump, after all, is the president who moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a divided city claimed by conservative Jews in Israel and by Palestinians as a capital. Muslim Americans told Harris to shove it; Trump is likely to tell Israel to have at it.
One religious group of voters did stay with the Democratic Party nominee: Jewish American voters.
Nearly eight in 10 Jews said they backed Harris, according to data from the National Election Pool, which compiles exit polling data for a variety of media outlets.
That’s in line with the level of support other Democratic candidates got from Jewish Americans. Indeed, Jews have long been a key part of the Democratic Party’s constituency. And American Jews have a long history of supporting Black Americans as they pushed for an end to segregation and for equal opportunity.
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