The Jews’ favored Democratic candidate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, won the New Hampshire primary, while the favorite Jewish GOP pick finished a distant fourth.
The victories by Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain in Tuesday’s primary marked a tremendous turnaround in each party. Virtually all major polls in recent days predicted that Clinton, a New York senator with a 70 percent approval rating among Jews, would lose to U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) after his win in the Iowa caucuses.
McCain, an Arizona senator with ties to Jews across the political spectrum, had dropped far behind in the polls over the summer. His victory in New Hampshire dealt a second major defeat to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who finished second in Iowa’s GOP race to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
On Tuesday, Huckabee finished third, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican candidate most favored by Jews in the GOP, finished a distant fourth.
