Poll That Jewish Support For Obama Down To 42%: Defended And Replicated

The whole fuss started with a poll for Secure America Now, done by Democrat Pat Caddell and Republican John McLaughlin--that found Jewish support for Obama seriously declining:

While American Jewish voters, like the rest of the country, believe that economics is the most important issue facing the nation, they also believe that for the American Jewish community the single most important issue for the Jewish community is Israel.

In a poll conducted by Democrat Pat Caddell and Republican John McLaughlin for the non-partisan organization Secure America Now http://www.secureamericanow.org/ , American Jewish voters expressed admiration for many of President Obama’s personal qualities (honesty, leadership, intelligence...) they also expressed deep concern about the state of Israel/US relations and policies being championed by the Obama Administration.

• 93% are concerned about Israel being threatened by Arab nations and Iran that want to destroy Israel.
• 81% are against Israel being forced to return to its pre-1967 borders.
• 81% agree with the Administration as they oppose the UN recognizing a Palestinian State
• 76% are concerned about Islamic terrorism committed in the US by American born Muslims
• 73% believe Jerusalem should remain the united capital of Israel and only 8% support that the US should force Israel to give away parts of Jerusalem.
• 88% believes that a prerequisite for Palestinian Statehood is their recognition of Israel as a Jewish State.
• And by a a 54-21 majority they feel that the Arab Spring has made the world more dangerous for Israel

That this divide may have political consequences can be seen in the answers to the following: Despite a job approval rating of 63% for President Obama, only two in five Jewish voters (43% ) say they would vote to re-elect President Obama. The plurality (48%) would consider someone else and 9% are undecided.

Mr. Caddell commented on the results:” These most loyal of Democrat voters are very concerned about the future of Israel and the tense relations between the Obama Administration and the State of Israel.”

John McLaughlin added “This poll adds to the growing evidence that right behind concerns about the economy are concerns about security, and among Jewish Americans voters growing concerns for the future of our ally Israel.”

The key finding was that only 42% of Jews would vote again for Obama in 2012.

Not unexpectedly, there was a rebuttal, but what  may have been unexpected was the sharpness of that rebuttal--not just challenging the results but making accusations of deliberate bias.

Alana Goodman summarizes the attack on the Caddell-McLaughlin poll:

On Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog, Craighill claimed the McLaughlin-Caddell survey was “a clear example of advocacy polling” that did not “represent neutral, independent research.”

Pollsters John McLaughlin and Pat Caddell defended their Jewish voters poll against heavy criticism today, charging that a recent Washington Post article disputing their findings was a biased “hit job.”

“I probably know more about polling in my little finger, over 40 years, than that person [Washington Post polling manager Peyton Craighill] has ever,” Caddell told me during a conference call with reporters.

On Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog, Craighill claimed the McLaughlin-Caddell survey was “a clear example of advocacy polling” that did not “represent neutral, independent research.”

Goodman likewise goes on to describe how Caddell and McLaughlin rebutted the criticism of their poll:

Caddell and McLaughlin went on to respond to the two major criticisms of their poll: that it allegedly had a skewed sample, and that it asked unfair and leading questions. For example, only 65 percent of their poll respondents said they voted for Obama in 2008, which conflicts with the exit polling data claiming 79 percent of Jews voted for him. Caddell said the sample’s demographics were solid, but it’s common for many people not to admit voting for a president when he becomes less popular.

In a Washington Post blog, Adam Serwer alleged that certain questions in the poll “primed” respondents to view Obama negatively. For example, one question seemed to suggest Obama had called on Israel to return to the 1967 borders, divide Jerusalem, and accept the right of return. According to Serwer, this question may have tainted the rest of the answers from respondents.

McLaughlin denied this, saying the question was asked late in the poll and wouldn’t have had a big impact. Caddell said the question was simply meant to gauge the respondents’ reaction to a particular argument.

As for the substance of the question, McLaughlin said, “Whether the president supports those ideas or not, we’ll see. But he definitely raised those issues at his speech at the State Department.”

The pollsters have already issued a lengthy Power Point that goes into the details of the survey, but they said they will also post the full questions and the order the questions were asked on the McLaughlin & Associates website. Jewish community polls are notoriously tricky to carry out, and judging the reliability of a poll with such a small sample size (600) is always difficult. But the results do support recent anecdotal evidence that the Jewish community is growing uneasy with Obama’s Israel policies. Maybe Caddell and Sargent can hash these issues out at their debate.

That Power Point presentation can be viewed here--in addition to a new poll that backs up Cadell and McLaughlin:

Click here for a full page view.




Now here are the results of a Sienna College poll taken over the first half of July--from 6 to 7 and from 10 to 11.
According to Mere Rhetoric who pointed out this poll, the key things to note are:

(1) The overall findings - Q4 is the generic fav/unfav question. Obama is underwater with NYS Jews 41/51. Not only is he 10 points underwater but a majority of NYS Jews have an unfavorable opinion of the President.
(2) Confirms the Secure America Now "reelect" question - Q17 asks the same question that the SAN poll asked. You'll remember that poll was described as "laughable" by the Washington Post, a criticism that was described as "impeccable" by Ron Kampeas of the JTA. So turning to the Sienna poll we find 35/52, a confirmation of the SAN findings.
(3) The poll's sampling seems solid - Q18 shows Jews voting to reelect Gillibrand 60/22, which is exactly what you'd expect. You'll also notice that Jews more or less line up with the rest of NYS residents on the other questions. Only when you get to Obama do you get really sharp differences. Which brings up...
(4) Jews disproportionately disapprove of Obama. If you look at the crosstabs on Q4 and Q17 you'll notice that Jews have an unfavorable view of Obama / would prefer to elect someone else by a wider margin than every other NYS religious or income demographic (in fact he's not even underwater with any other demo except Catholics, and not by as much as with Jews). The upshot is that there's some issue pushing down his numbers with Jews that isn't affecting him with other demos - i.e. Israel

Here's the poll (Full page view of poll here):



None of this of course is going to make Obama's defenders give up, but by the same token the planned campaign by the Obama re-election staff to counter the perceived decline in the Jewish vote is not going to stop either.

One can only hope that however you read the polls, at the very least it shows that the Jewish vote is not automatically Democratic to the extent that it still allows Democratic candidates to take it for granted.

Whether there is an actual trend towards Jews voting Republican--well that is whole other story.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Obama and Jews and Election 2012.