Polls and Jews

At The New York Times, Charles Blow defends his analysis last week, based on Pew poll data, of declining Jewish support for Obama, against a critique by The Nation’s Eric Alterman.

Pew said Jewish identification with the GOP had shot up from 20 percent in 2008 to 33 percent this year.

Eric’s broader argument is that Blow is adding two and two and not ncessarily getting four: Obama’s plunge in popularity among Jews might be related to his plunge in popularity generally — i.e., it’s the economy, stupid — and not, as Blow focused on exclusively in his first column, the Middle East or Israel.

Barack Obama, like pretty much every Democrat before him, remains more popular with Jews than with just about any other ethnic group in America, save blacks. His approval rating among Jews, steady in the low 60s, is about 15 percent higher than it is with the goyim. Neoconservatives have been predicting a Jewish turn toward the Republicans since George McGovern only got about two-thirds of the Jewish vote—that’s right, only two-thirds—and yet it never happens. (See for instance, “Milton Himmelfarb, “Are Jews Becoming Republicans?” Commentary, August 1981. Having lost patience, they started complaining about what Irving Kristol not so fondly called  “The Political Stupidity of the Jews.”) Even so, on what authority does Blow have it that most American Jews decide their vote purely on the issue of Israel, or that Obama’s policies toward Israel are particularly unpopular with Jews? Blow may be without doubt on these points, but he is also without any reliable evidence.

Blow, in his response, focuses only on Eric’s contention that Obama consistently polls higher among Jews than the rest of the population. He asked the people at Pew to compare Obama’s standing to other sub-groups that tend to support the president in greater percentages than the general population (blacks, Hispanics, Democrats, etc.) Here were Blow’s findings from Pew:

    * Obama’s approval rating among Jews in 2010 averaged 58 percent.
    * This percentage was the lowest of all those representing his enthusiastic supporter groups except one, the religious unaffiliated.
    * The percentage change in Obama’s approval rating from 2009 to 2010 among Jews was greater than any of the other enthusiastic supporter groups, greater than Democrats and liberals in general and greater than the nation overall (or the goyim, if you prefer.)

Except, Gallup just came out today with another analysis of its aggregates for 2010. (Aggregates are analyses based on cumulative day-to-day or week-to-week polling. Gallup’s is daily.) Gallup shows Obama with 61 percent job approval among Jews, 13 points above the national average of 48 percent; and that’s a four percent swing upward from April, when the difference was just 9 percent, based on a comparison between an American Jewish Committee poll and over all approval per Gallup (57 among Jews, 48 general).

Not only that, but Gallup’s aggregate polling shows that that gap — 13 to 14 percent — has tracked the same since he was elected. It was 14 percent in the first half of 2009 (77 Jews, 63 general), 13 percent in the second half (66 Jews and 53 general) and now stands at 13.

And not only that, but other groups in the Gallup roundup that trend more supportive for Obama then the general population have sustained consistent margins in comparison with general polling, with the exception of Muslims, where Obama consistently polls in the 80s. (The breakouts are different, it must be said: Whereas Blow asked for breakouts based on ethnicity and political affiliation, Gallup has breakouts based on religion, or non affiliation with religion.)

And not only that, but Gallup’s margin of error is minuscule. Its aggregate since January 2009 is 6,746 Jews, with a margin of error of less than 2 percent; that would mean its aggregate for the first half of this year is about a third of that — over 2,000 Jewish voters — with a margin of error of about 2 percent. Pew’s for this year is 286 Jews, which has a margin of error of about 7 percent.

And now, let me apologize for my mistake in reporting last week’s Pew polling showing a trend toward Republicans: I assessed that Pew based its polling comparing about 60 Jews interviewed this year against similar numbers in previous years.

In fact, the overall polling in that report — which had as its main finding that more Americans believe Obama is Muslim — was conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, and the sampling of Jews in that poll numbered 64. The result showing a shift toward the GOP among Jews is based on aggregate polling by the Forum’s partner, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press — that 286 number, which at least falls within the realm of reliability (64 respondents does not.)

That said:

*Gallup’s more reliable aggregate reporting shows no change in the Jewish-general population gap support for Obama;

*My analysis of the AJC poll, which broke out issues (as neither Gallup nor Pew does), suggests that Obama was losing Jewish support because of domestic issues — health care and the economy — and that there was no way of knowing how many of the drop-offs were disappointed from a left or right wing perspective. (For instance, Obama might have lost Jews when he dropped support for the public option.) On foreign policy, the AJC poll showed consistent Jewish support for Obama.