The research poll has the number of actual voters from Israel at 30,000, which is significantly lower than Israel’s voter turnout in 2012, which analysts suggest is because of who the candidates are this time.

By LAHAV HARKOV

If American citizens in Israel were to choose the next president of the United States, Republican nominee Donald Trump would win the election, according to the results of an exit poll taken among absentee voters in Israel obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post.

An Israeli soldier walks past members of the US Republican party’s election campaign team near a mall in Modi’in, Israel. – Photo: REUTERS

Trump received 49% of the Israeli-American vote, while Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton got 44%, according to the poll conducted by get-out-the-vote organization iVoteIsrael and KEEVOON Global Research.

Another 2% voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson, and the rest chose “other” or said they voted for Congress and not a presidential candidate.

Full results of the exit poll, including state-by-state results, will be available on Thursday. The poll was taken on Monday-Wednesday of this week, among 1,140 respondents, and has a 3% margin of error.

According to the US Vote Foundation, an international get-out-the-vote organization for absentee voters, the top 10 states for voters sending ballots from Israel are New York – from which a third of such voters hail – New Jersey, California, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland and Texas. Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania are swing states.

The total number of votes coming from Israel, 30,000, is significantly lower than voter turnout in Israel in 2012, when 80,000 Americans in Israel used iVoteIsrael’s voter aid services alone.

Eitan Charnoff, iVoteIsrael executive director, said the low turnout, despite the organization holding dozens of events and the major parties’ Israeli representatives being active as well, is due to this year’s candidates.

“I think that a lot of people expressed a lack of enthusiasm about either candidate,” he stated. “It will be interesting to see if that is reflected in the voting in the US next week as well.”

The results also greatly differed. In 2012, iVoteIsrael’s exit poll found that 84% of Americans in Israel voted for Republican Mitt Romney and 14% voted to reelect US President Barack Obama.

The shift in voting patterns shows “the dynamic nature of politics and how people choose to vote for the US president in Israel,” Charnoff posited.