Alan Cooperman reports in tomorrow morning's issue of the Washington Post on a recent poll commissioned by the American Jewish Council showing a big surge for John Kerry among Jewish voters. He writes in "Iraq War Leads Jewish Voters To Kerry, Poll Finds" thusly:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is gaining support among Jewish voters as growing numbers disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, according to a poll commissioned by the American Jewish Committee.

If the election were held today, 69 percent of Jewish voters would support Kerry, 24 percent would back Bush and 3 percent would give their votes to Ralph Nader, the survey found. That's an increase of 10 percentage points for Kerry since December, when the last AJC poll showed him with 59 percent of the Jewish vote.

He continues:

Although Jews make up only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, they are a significant group in some battlegrounds, such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and a major fundraising base for Democratic candidates.

The poll did not ask why voters support Bush or Kerry. But some of its findings suggest that the rising support for Kerry is connected to the war in Iraq, according to David A. Harris, executive director of the nonpartisan AJC. The survey found that 66 percent of U.S. Jews disapprove of the war, up from 54 percent in December; 57 percent think the threat of terrorism against the United States has increased as a result of the war.

"The president has not made any inroads among the middle-of-the-road Jewish voters, probably because, on issues like abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, gun control and church-state issues, he has stuck with his most loyal conservative constituency and has not tacked toward the center," Harris said.

This is not surprising as Jews have been an integral part of the Democratic coalition at least since Harry Truman recognized Israel in 1948 and perhaps since the creation of the New Deal coalition in 1932. Nevertheless, this is a group that the President has heavily targeted in this election with his pandering to the pro-Likud crowd, and the fact that his level of support is only 5% higher than it was in 2000 among Jewish voters (barely statistically significant in this poll with a MoE of +/- 3%) shows he has not been particularly successful in this aim.