Jews voted overwhelmingly for U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Florida’s Democratic primary.
MSNBC exit polls Tuesday showed Jewish Democrats voting 58 percent for Clinton (D-N.Y.), 26 percent for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and 13 percent for the former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
Fifty-eight percent of Jewish Democrats voted for Clinton, more than double Barack Obama’s 26 percent. John Edwards, who is expected to withdraw from the race on Wednesday, won 13 percent.
Among the overall white population, the numbers for Clinton and Obama were slightly lower than they were among the Jews, at 53 and 23 percent, respectively. Edwards picked up the balance, winning 20 percent of the overall white vote.
Jews comprised 3 percent of the Republican electorate in Florida, according to the MSNBC exit polls, making it impossible to determine their specific votes.
Clinton started off her victory speech in Davie, Fla., near Ft. Lauderdale, by thanking Florida by thanking an increasingly influential Jewish lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and three other politicians who had campaigned for Clinton in the Sunshine State.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
