Obama and the Italian-American vote

[Verily]

It seems that all the Italians I know are Republicans.

I think most are Dems.

I'd expect Obama to do poorly among Italians but who knows this year?

Around here they're the most Republican voting bloc except the obscenely wealthy. But that means the heavily Italian towns split pretty evenly, marginally McCain or marginally Obama. Which probably means the Italians themselves were about 60-40 Republican given the other demographics in such areas: blacks, Hispanics, Reform Jews, etc. That's not much changed from 2004, maybe a one- or two-point swing to Obama overall (so a trend to McCain).

Here are town-by-town results for far North Jersey (courtesy the Record); the towns in the southwest of Bergen County (eastern county) are heavily Italian, centered around Carlstadt and Rutherford.

http://dng.northjersey.com/media_server/tr/smaps/2008/electionresults2008/map/index.php

[Verily]

I'd say that the Irish-Americans tend to be the left of Italian-Americans in most if not all areas.

It's not clear to me that they're to the left ideologically. Certainly tribally the Irish are Democratic and the Italians Republican. But that probably has more to do with "ancient" events than anything in the modern day.