Did Obama Win 83% of the Jewish Vote?

Aaron Keyak — April 28, 2009 – 11:34 am | Barack Obama | Election 2008 | Polls Comments (0) Add a comment

There has been some talk in recent days about Jim Besser’s, of The New York Jewish Week, article that reports the Jewish community may have supported Obama by 83%.

The overwhelming Jewish vote for Obama despite widespread predictions Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, would do better than his GOP predecessors reflected the tectonic shift.

“Obama received 83 percent of the Jewish vote – a considerable improvement over John Kerry, who received 74 percent,” Sabato told the Jewish Week.

Those results “completely contradicted the pre-election media and pundit commentary that had suggested Obama was somehow ‘in trouble’ with Jewish voters. I lost count of the segments on cable news channels about that canard. It’s a good reminder to all of us to question the pundits’ conventional wisdom during election seasons.”

NJDC uses the figure from national exit polls that pegs the Jewish vote for Obama at 78%. Today, Besser gives an interesting update.

Why, readers asked, does Sabato put the Jewish vote for Obama at 83 percent while earlier newspaper accounts had it at 78 percent?

Either number qualifies as overwhelming, but you can understand why Jewish Republicans are sensitive about these things and why Jewish Democrats are hopeful.

I put the question to Sabato before posting the initial item, and here’s his emailed response:

“The final adjusted exit poll results for the category ‘white Jewish’ list 83 percent for Barack Obama. Since they are only 2-3 percent of the population, the margin of error is substantial. Other surveys may well have measured the Obama support at 78 percent. That is only a 5 percent differential, and the margins of error here are easily greater than that. The reasonable conclusion is that Obama received ‘more than three-quarters’ of the Jewish vote. The precise percentage will always be somewhat elusive, as it is for all small subcategories of voters.

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