Obama's Approval Rating Declines Among Jewish Voters

A new Gallup poll released Tuesday shows President Barack Obama's approval rating declining among Jewish Americans. He dropped to 60 percent in June, down from 68 percent in May.

Gallup notes that the decline from May reflects a downward shift among the country as a whole in Obama's approval rating, chiefly due to the brief bounce in numbers he received from the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 1.

But Obama followed that up by giving a speech urging Israel to return to its 1967 borders with additional land swaps in order to reach a settlement in the conflict with the Palestinians. Gallup is mum on whether the speech made a difference in his popularity among the Jewish community:

"Gallup cannot say whether the speech had an immediate impact on the views of Jewish Americans toward the president nationally, as sample sizes for this group in Gallup Daily tracking are too small to isolate short time periods.

However, aggregated Gallup Daily tracking interviews for the month and half periods prior to and following the speech show no significant nor sustained shift in Jewish Americans' views toward Obama. Sixty-five percent approved of him for the April 1-May 18 time period, and 62 percent approved from May 19-June 30. Across the two time periods, approval was also essentially flat among all U.S. adults."
Republicans hoping to make inroads into Jewish support for Obama ahead of the 2012 election, especially in South Florida, could be disappointed, despite the recent uproar over his 1967 Israel borders speech.