(JTA) — Jewish voters overwhelmingly favor former Vice President Joe Biden over Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, a new poll finds.
In the survey conducted by Morning Consult, 47.1 percent of Jewish registered voters planning to vote in a Democratic primary or caucus cite Biden as their first choice, while 11.1 percent favor Sanders, who is Jewish.
The next three choices: Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, at 8.9 percent; Sen. Kamala Harris of California, 8.2 percent; and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, 7.3 percent.
Pollsters interviewed 15,770 registered voters who are planning to vote in a Democratic primary or caucus, 581 of whom identified as Jewish, between April 29 and May 5. The margin of error is 1 percentage point.
Biden, first elected senator in 1972, has cultivated close ties with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and appeared to weather the pro-Israel community’s tensions with the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal and other disagreements.
Sanders, an independent and self-described “democratic socialist,” has defended Israel from attacks by the left but is also frequently critical of its current right-wing government.