There’s nothing earth shattering about the new AJC survey of American Jewish opinion. Support for Obama among American Jews is slightly higher today than it was half a year ago, but is still not very high. As Ron Kampeas reported: “The AJC’s new findings are similar to those of the Public Religion Research Institute in March. That poll showed Obama scoring 62 percent of the Jewish vote, as opposed to 30 percent for a GOP candidate”.
Romney, according the new AJC survey, could get as much as 33% of the Jewish vote (our Israel Factor panel predicted 34% for Romney). That’s nice compared to Republican performances in previous election cycles, but not the meltdown of Jewish support for Obama that some Republican operatives predicted about a year ago. Forty percent of Jewish Americans do not approve of Obama’s handling of US-Israel relations. This is significant improvement compared to the September 2011 survey in which 53% registered in the “disapprove” column.
The AJC survey gives one an opportunity to also revisit our ongoing attempt to understand party identification trends among Jewish voters. In January and February I posted twice about this topic (Are Jews Trending Republican? and Do we now have proof that Jews are trending Republican?), and in the second post, devoted mostly to PEW surveys I made this comment:
What I argued in my previous post, based on data from other polls, is that Jews seem to trend Independent more than Republican. This merits another look (which I hope to do soon), as the PEW people insist that “Jews are the only religious group analyzed in which the percentage who identify themselves as Republican (as opposed to leaning toward the GOP) has risen significantly”. What they say is the opposite of what other surveys demonstrated and should be carefully examined as it might change our outlook on Jewish political trends.
The AJC survey gives me the first such opportunity to have “another look” at party trends among Jews, as it poses two questions that are very relevant to this topic. The first question is the one the AJC people included in previous polls: “In politics TODAY, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent?” The second one is new: “[IF INDEPENDENT/OTHER] As of TODAY, do you think of yourself as closer to the Republican Party/Democratic Party?”
The first question is identical to the one that we used in our January analysis, and enables as to update our Jewish party identification graph (the detailed table on which the graph is based is at the end of this post):
What do we learn from this update? Unfortunately it is adding to the confusion rather than clarifying the trend. In our previous posts, we showed that there’s a difference between AJC surveys (in the graph above – showing trending towards Independent positions), and the trend recorded by PEW surveys (in the graph below – showing gradual trending towards the Republican Party):
Enter the new AJC survey, adding two layers of confusion to the mix:
1. According to the new survey, and contrary to the trend recorded in the last five surveys, the number of Jewish Independents is going down, not up.
2. But this doesn’t mean that the PEW survey got it right: according to the AJC survey of 2012, the percentage of Jewish Democrats – not Republicans – is the one that’s really rising (the number of Jewish Republicans is going slightly up).
However, we might still be able to learn something new from the AJC survey – because of the decision to add a question this year that wasn’t there last year. As I mentioned earlier, in the 2012 survey Independents were asked a follow up question about their “closeness” to the two parties. And here’s what we can learn from this question:
|
Question/Party
|
Democratic
|
Republican
|
Independent
|
|
Party identification
|
52%
|
19%
|
26%
|
|
Party leaning of Independents
|
64%
|
34%
|
|
|
Total: Party identification + Party leaning
|
68%
|
27%
|
|
What do we learn from this? That the AJC numbers are now much closer to the PEW numbers:
|
Democrats
|
Republicans
|
|
|
PEW 2011
|
65%
|
29%
|
|
AJC ‘12 (identification + leaning)
|
68%
|
27%
|
To conclude: The number of Republican-leaning Jewish voters is similar in the AJC and PEW surveys, and is close to 30% (but not quite there). Is this a trend towards the Republican Party? According to PEW surveys it is, but the AJC survey doesn’t yet confirm such a trend, given that the “leaning” question of Independent voters was first presented this year.
|
Year
|
GOP
|
Dem
|
Ind
|
Not Sure
|
|
2012*
|
19
|
52
|
26
|
2
|
|
2011 *
|
16
|
45
|
38
|
2
|
|
Fall 2010 *
|
17
|
48
|
34
|
1
|
|
2010 *
|
15
|
50
|
32
|
2
|
|
2009 *
|
16
|
53
|
30
|
1
|
|
2008 *
|
17
|
56
|
25
|
2
|
|
2005 *
|
16
|
54
|
29
|
1
|
|
2004 *
|
16
|
54
|
29
|
2
|
|
2002- 2004 **
|
16
|
50
|
34
|
|
|
2001-2002**
|
17
|
50
|
33
|
|
|
2000 *
|
9
|
59
|
30
|
2
|
|
1996 *
|
52
|
|||
|
1991-2002 ***
|
51.7
|
|||
|
1992-2001**
|
18
|
50
|
32
|
|
|
1981-90 ***
|
53.9
|
|||
|
1972-80 ***
|
57.8
|
* AJC annual surveys of Jewish opinion
** Gallup
*** Jewish Distinctiveness in America, Tom W. Smith. T, 2005
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