An exit poll of 1,572 Jews who hold dual American-Israeli citizenship cast their absentee ballots overwhelmingly for Romney — 85 percent to just 14 percent for Obama. The poll, which has a margin of error of 2.5 percent, was conducted Oct. 22-24 and found that the No. 1 issue for voters was Israel and its related issues, such as the status of Jerusalem and Palestinians. Some 61 percent of voters listed it as No. 1.
Immigrants from the two battleground states of Florida and Ohio, Romney captured 85 percent and 83 percent of the vote, respectively. IVoteIsrael, a diverse group of Americans who live in Israel and that encouraged Americans there to vote in the presidential election, conducted the poll. It said 80,000 had cast absentee ballots compared with 20,000 four years ago. Typically, it said, only 5 percent of Americans living abroad vote in presidential elections. Should that hold true this year, the American vote from Israel could represent about 20-25 percent of the total expat vote, according to Elie Pieprz, the group’s national director.
Of those polled, 47 percent defined themselves as religious, 22 percent as fervently Orthodox, 15 percent as traditional and 9 percent as non-observant. An equal number of men and women were polled. Some 89 percent questioned said they voted for Romney because of Israel-related issues; 86 percent listed Iran as a factor; 85 percent cited taxes, and 59 percent said jobs and the economy. Obama outpolled Romney on only one issue queried — health care. Some 76 percent favored Obama for that reason.
About one-third of voters polled were 60 and older, with the rest evenly split among the other age brackets.
Interestingly, Romney’s coattails were very long, carrying with him 62 percent of Republican congressional candidates; only 28 percent polled voted for Democratic candidates.
