J Street Poll of American Jewish Electorate – Must Reading

The poll below is necessary reading for anyone interested in the American Jewish community’s voting behavior in the 2012 election, its concerns about Israel and peace with the Palestinians. The poll puts to bed the canard that the American Jewish community is behaving substantially differently than it has since World War II.

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The Gerstein poll discovered that 70% of the American Jewish community supported President Obama and Democrats and 30% supported Governor Romney and Republicans. That is essentially unchanged.

Jim Gerstein is a founding partner of GBA Strategies. For 10 years, he served as the Executive Director of Democracy Corps, a non-profit organization founded by Democratic strategists James Carville, Stan Greenberg, and Bob Shrum, that conducts public opinion research and provides strategic advice to the progressive community. Prior to his work with Democracy Corps, Gerstein was the Executive Director of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, where he led public education campaigns, congressional visits to the Middle East, and convened Middle East diplomats in the U.S. for meetings with business and political leaders.

The Institute provides financial, organizational, and strategic support for various Arab-Israeli peace projects, including meetings between retired generals from Israel and Arab countries, initiatives with regional business leaders, and dialogues between Jewish and Arab officials.

During the 1999 Israeli Prime Ministerial campaign, Gerstein took a leave of absence and joined Ehud Barak’s U.S. based consulting team. He served as the team’s man on the ground, overseeing polling, paid media, and message development for the campaign. Gerstein has worked on several U.S. political campaigns and has held several key positions within the Democratic Party. In 1992, he worked on the field campaign for Carol Moseley Braun’s successful run for the U.S. Senate in Illinois. He later moved to Washington, DC, where he became the Deputy Director for Jewish Affairs at the Democratic National Committee. In 1996, Gerstein worked in the press office for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and then directed the Clinton/Gore campaign for the north side of Chicago and northern Illinois.