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09/29/2008

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A ‘Ceiling’ For Obama’s Jewish Support?

If the election for president were being held today, for whom would you vote?
Source: AJC Survey of AMerican Jewish opinion

If the election for president were being held today, for whom would you vote? Source: AJC Survey of AMerican Jewish opinion

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

Despite intensifying outreach, the Barack Obama presidential campaign continues to underperform with Jewish voters — and there are new hints the problem may not be confined to the retirement condos and senior centers in Florida.

This year’s American Jewish Committee Survey of American Jewish Opinion, released late last week, suggests Obama “seems to have hit a ceiling” with Jewish voters, according to AJC Executive Director David Harris.

In the survey, the Democratic nominee scored 57 percent with Jewish voters overall — a slight decrease from two other recent polls and 12 percentage points below what John Kerry garnered in the same poll in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election.

And in a slap at the conventional political wisdom, the poll suggests younger Jewish

voters are more of a problem for the campaign than older ones. The survey designers concede, however, that the number could be skewed by a political divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews.

In a snapshot of political attitudes taken as the crisis in the financial markets was just beginning to spiral downward, “there is less than ever to distinguish Jewish voters from the population at large,” said Johns Hopkins political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg. “In part that reflects the times; the economy is in crisis, and every voter group reflects that.”

Jews are more like other voters in their choices for president, in the issues they list as top priorities and even on the hot-button issue of Iran than in previous polls.

The growing divide between Orthodox and non-Orthodox — on Obama and on John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, supported by 70 percent of the Orthodox but only 37 percent of the overall sample — also reflects national trends, Ginsberg said.

“Orthodox Jews are voting more and more like Evangelical Protestants and other deeply religious groups,” he said.

A surprising number of Jews, Ginsberg said, remain unenthusiastic about both candidates. In the 2004 AJC poll, also conducted in early September, only 5 percent were undecided in the race between Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush; this year, 13 percent haven’t made up their minds.

The normally wide-ranging AJC poll was abbreviated this year — in part to make sure it would appear well before the election, in part for budgetary reasons.

Last year, the group asked a total of 38 questions and addressed in detail a number of international and domestic issues and questions on anti-Semitism. This year, the entire survey consisted of 15 questions, with most of the questions zeroing in on election-year issues.

Asked their current preference for president, 57 percent said Obama and 30 percent McCain, with 13 percent undecided. The AJC survey was conducted by Synovate during the period Sept. 8-21 and has a margin of error plus or minus 3 percent

Despite aggressive outreach to Jewish voters in key states, Obama’s numbers were slightly lower than they were in the only other recent surveys that looked at Jewish political attitudes — a July survey by J Street, the new pro-peace process political action committee and lobby, and a May survey by Gallup.
The most surprising conclusion appeared in breakdowns not included in the AJC press release.

“Everybody assumes it’s the younger Jews who are most drawn to Obama,” said chief AJC pollster David Singer. “But we found the opposite — in the 60-plus category, 61 percent said they were for Obama, 57 percent for the 40-59 group, and 49 percent for those under 40.”

How did he explain a result that deviates from numerous reports about young Jewish voters flocking to the Obama cause?

“We don’t know,” Singer said. “But it may be that in the over-60 group this may not be as much a commitment to Obama as a reflection of people who have spent their whole voting lives — decades — voting Democratic. That pattern may be continuing to exert itself.”

Some leading Obama supporters rejected the new data.

“Because of our two Web sites — JewsVote.org and TheGreatSchlep.com — I have spoken to dozens and dozens of Jews and e-mailed with hundreds in recent weeks,” said Mik Moore, a co-founder of the Jewish Council for Education and Research, a pro-Obama group. “From those communications it seems quite clear that Jewish support for Obama — like general support for Obama — is strongest among younger voters.”

Moore said any suggestion that Obama is doing less well among younger Jews is “literally unbelievable.”

And there was also criticism that the AJC poll did not subdivide Jews under 40; it is widely assumed that Obama’s strongest support among Jews is coming from those under 30.

Singer conceded that the startling results on age could be skewed because the group has no breakdown by both Jewish religious affiliation and age. In other words, the younger segment could be more heavily Orthodox than the older groups.

But the fact that Obama’s numbers are not climbing, despite intensive Jewish outreach, is a troubling sign for the campaign, analysts say.

University of Florida political scientist Kenneth Wald said that, in part, Obama’s weak lead could reflect McCain’s post-convention bounce — which was starting to dissipate at about the time the AJC pollsters were making their calls. But overall, “these numbers are not good for Obama, and raise a number of issues,” Wald said.

Why has the Democratic nominee hit a brick wall with Jewish voters? Wald said the biggest reason may be that the community still does not know him.

“So it is taking a lot of Jews longer to make up their minds,” he said.

Many Jews are feeling “intensely cross-pressured,” Wald said, as they are torn between wariness of Obama and unhappiness with the GOP ticket, and in particular with the selection of Palin as McCain’s running mate.

That whipsaw effect could explain the higher-than-usual proportion of undecideds, he said.

“At the end of the day, you have to expect many of them to break Democratic,” Wald said. “But the Obama people have to worry about these numbers and continue to put resources into Jewish outreach.”

The new figures also suggest that “the calculated e-mail attacks on Obama spreading false information about him are having an impact,” said California State University political scientist Raphael Sonenshein.
He also cited aggressive anti-Obama advertising by the Republican Jewish Coalition and the group’s controversial polling that “test marketed” negative advertising about the Democrat.

“I think the issue climate is perfect for Obama — except all these suspicions about him being fed by mysterious rumor mills and some of the fallout from previous black-Jewish issues and the real problem of Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright,” Sonenshein said.

As usual, there was a stark divide between Orthodox voters and those describing themselves as Conservative, Reform or “just Jewish.”

Jewish Democrats believe there is a new receptivity among Orthodox voters to their message, but the 78 percent of Orthodox respondents who signaled support for McCain, against only 13 percent for Obama, may give them pause.

Several analysts expressed surprise that only 62 percent of Reform voters — the Democrats’ strong Jewish base — said they would vote for Obama.

“Assuming these numbers stay consistent, it suggests that in parts of the country where there are strong Jewish communities, the drift to McCain and the Republican Party may be even stronger than predicted,” said Gilbert Kahn, a Kean University political scientist. “It suggests the Democrats have a lot more work to do.”

There was one better piece of news for the Democrats: Obama’s selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate won approval from 73 percent of those surveyed.

Again reflecting national trends, Jewish women are more likely (60 percent) to choose Obama than Jewish men (54 percent).

Even on the emotional question of Iran, Jewish voters seemed to be moving in the direction of the broader electorate.

In the AJC poll, 42 percent said they would support U.S. military action to prevent Iran from going nuclear — a sharp rise from 35 percent last year.

Despite Israel’s special vulnerability, Jewish public opinion has in the past lagged behind that of the broader electorate on the issue of military action against Iran; this year, it seems to have caught up.
Jews were becoming more like their non-Jewish neighbors in other areas, as well, according to the annual survey.

The issue of Israel has receded and almost every issue, foreign and domestic, has been swept aside by a tsunami of economic angst.

Asked about the “one issue you would most like to hear the candidates for president discuss” this year, the economy garnered 54 percent; in a question with different wording last year, the economy was chosen by only 23 percent.

Health care was second, at 11 percent, with the war in Iraq at 6 percent.

Israel, believed by the candidates to be the overwhelming priority of Jewish voters, was mentioned by only 3 percent of Jewish voters.