1.
We should begin by stating a simple truth: whatever your political affiliation is, it's reasonable to assume that the 2014 Jewish vote assessment by left-wing organization J Street is more accurate than the number mentioned in the right-wing Republican Jewish Coalition’s press release. That is not because J Street is better situated to assess the Jewish vote – it is because J Street actually made an assessment while RJC merely quoted the exit polls. The J Street assessment is better than the exit polls because it targeted Jews, 800 hundred of them, while the exit polls just took what they had in the pool of respondents: 3% were Jews out of the 7000 or so respondents to the survey. That means 250 Jews in the exit polls on a good day, compared to the more than threefold number of Jews in the J Street poll.
Having said that, let’s look at the difference between the polls.
The exit poll says: 66% of Jews voted for a Democrat, 33% voted for a Republican.
The J Street poll – by pollster Jim Gerstein – says 69% for Democrats, 28% for Republicans.
Big deal.
2.
Based on such little differences in the outcome, the RJC concludes that this is a “continued inroads the GOP is making in the Jewish community”, while J Street highlight the fact that “Despite the Republican gains in the US Senate and House during the 2014 mid-term election, Jews voted for the Democratic candidate for Congress by a 69 to 28 percent margin”. Of course, these two statements can both be accurate. Republicans made “inroads” while Jews still voted mostly for “the Democratic candidate”.
But the analysis by J Street goes further and argues that “there has been a remarkable consistency in the Jewish vote for Congress over the past 3 elections, including 66 percent for Democrats in 2010, 69 percent in 2012, and 69 percent in 2014”. That is – no “inroads”. RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks disagrees: “Since 1982, the historical average for the GOP in mid-term elections among Jewish voters has been 26%. The range has a low of 18% in 1982 and a high of 33% this year. In each of the last two midterm elections, Republicans got more than 30% of the Jewish vote”.
Confused? That’s the whole point of having these numbers presented by organizations with ideologies. J Street would like you to remember that Jews are Democrats, that they support President Obama and oppose the Israeli settlements. RJC wants you to believe that the President is terrible and that even slow-witted Jews have come around to understanding this after following the bickering between him and Israel.
And what is the truth – are Republicans making “inroads” with Jewish voters? One way of looking at this question is the way that was adopted in a 2012 paper by Mellman, Strauss and Wald. That paper, “Jewish American Voting Behavior 1972-2008: Just The Facts”, smartly examined not just the ups and downs of Jewish voting – because Jewish voting, like all American voting, changes because of many factors, most of which have nothing to do with Jews being Jews. Thus, the 2012 paper also shows the way Jews voted compared to the general population. That is to say: if Jews tend to vote Democratic 20 points above the American average, we should examine not the percentage (66% or 69% in the 2014 case) of Jews voting Democratic, but rather the gap between Jews and non-Jews in this election cycle.
Examples: in 1976, 78% of Jews voted Democratic, 57% of Americans voted Democratic. Hence, a 21% gap. In 1988 the gap was also 21%. In 1992 it was 26%. All these are Presidential years.
Looking at midterm years, in 1994 the gap was 32%. In 2004 it was 31%. In 2006, 34%. In 2010, 45% of Americans voted Democratic, compared to 66% of Jewish voters (according to a J Street poll, the only source we have from that election cycle). So the gap was 21%. In 2014 the national vote for Democrats was 47%. If Jews voted 66% Democratic, the gap is 19% – lower than usual. If they voted 69% Democratic, the gap is 23%, a little low, yet higher than in many previous races. In fact, the gap was even smaller in 2012, when the popular vote was 51% for the Democratic ticket and 69% of Jews voted Democratic – a 18% gap.
3.
I will take one bit of positive news from the J Street survey (and they will rightly complain that I ignored all the important news about peace making and the settlements and chose instead to write about the numbers that I find more agreeable):
More than 4-in-5 American Jews closely followed the news about this summer’s military conflict between Israeli and Hamas, and 80 percent approved of the military operation (Operation Protective Edge).
I find two things here that are remarkable. The first one concerns J Street. The organization refrained from making the mistake it did in the past, and during Protective Edge it generally kept its criticism of Israel muted. The survey is just another proof that J Street isn’t looking to second-guess the operation – and you can see it from the type of question they chose to ask: “Do you approve or disapprove of Israel's military action, known as Operation Protective Edge, that took place in Gaza this summer?”
No question about “overreaction”, no question about “proportional response”, no question about “Israel’s responsibility”. J Street wanted to present the simple fact of general support, and not the many complications associated with American Jewish thinking about the war.
This brings me to the second point, for which I will compare the response in the J Street survey – 80% approval for the operation, 47% strong approval – to a survey of young Jewish Americans about which I wrote a few weeks ago:
25% of Birthright participants think Israel has “gone too far” in its response to the conflict. That is a lot. Among non-participant applicants to Birthright the number goes up to 38% (ten points higher than the average young American – that is, young Jews are much more critical of Israel than young non-Jews, unless they go on Birthright). 20% of participants think that Israel's actions in the war were “mostly” or “completely” unjustified.
So you see: when you ask complicated questions you get complicated answers, and you then might begin to give these answers complicated interpretations. But when J Street presented a clear and simple question, it suddenly became clearer: 8 out of 10 Jews in the US approve of Israel’s operation. So yes, the “fifth Jew” doesn’t approve of it – I first wrote about the phenomenon of the “fifth Jew” almost a decade ago – so what? Eighty percent should be good enough for everyone.
4.
And yet, look at the cross tabs: the young are not as supportive as the older.
For men over 40 years old the approval for Protective Edge is 84%. If they are less than 40 years old it is 69%. For women, support drops from 84% to 74% as we look at above 40s and below 40s. The approve-disapprove gap for 40+ men is a whopping 68%. The gap for the under 40 men is a meager 38% (66% and 48% for women). The gap for all Jews under 30 years of age is 29%, with 65% approval and 35% disproval.
Is Israel loosing the young, or are the young just being young? We’ve visited that question many times in the past.
5.
The next time you wonder about the question of whether Israelis truly prefer a Republican to a Democrat, consider the following finding from the J Street poll: 38% of Jews supporting Hillary Clinton for the Presidency in 2016 “strongly approve” of Protective Edge – compared to 74% of Jews supporting Jeb Bush for the Presidency in 2016. The total “approve” figure for Hilary supporters is 77%. The total “approve” figure for Bush supporters is 92%.
Some more stats: 33% of Jews who approve of Obama’s handling of his job “strongly approve” of Protective Edge – compared to 66% of Jews who disapprove of Obama’s handling of his job. The approve-disapprove gap in this case is as follows: Obama supporters – 52% more approve of Protective Edge than disapprove of it. Obama opponents – 72% more approve of Protective Edge than disapprove of it.
All this is not at all surprising, but it definitely ads fuel to the Israel-is-from-Mars-Obama-(and his supporters)-is-from-Venus fire.
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