November 11, 2008

The Jewish Vote in 2008 and the Exit Polls

By Richard Baehr
Once again, as in 2006, Jewish Democrats are trumpeting the results of the national exit poll, which this year seems to show a very solid win for Barack Obama over John McCain among Jewish voters. And once again, as in 2006, anyone who has a clue about the exit polls and how they are conducted, should be much more cautious than the NJDC about interpreting the results. In 2006, the national exit poll surveyed about 200 Jews out of a national sample of 13,000, barely 1.5% of the voters interviewed. This year, about 2% of the combined 20,000 exit poll interviews conducted on the street or by phone were Jews, or about 400 in total.Jews make up about 3% of the electorate, about 50% higher than their share of the population, and in the 2004 national exit poll, 3% of those surveyed were Jewish. Why has the national exit poll under-represented Jewish voters in the last two elections?  Could that matter in terms of whether the national exit poll data accurately represented how Jews voted...(Read Full Article)