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Exit Polls and the Jewish Vote

According to exit polls, President Bush received only between 22 and 25 percent of the Jewish vote.

Miriam Shaviv asks whether Republican support for Israel might change as a result.

I too am concerned. The Republicans might conclude that former Secretary of State James Baker was right to say, "F*** the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway."

Yet I am sure that the exit polls are wrong. Under any standard, they are completely unreliable.

After completely failing in the 2000 election, yesterday's exit polls projected that Kerry would win the popular vote, Ohio and Florida. So certainly these polls are very flawed.

The exit polls got it wrong in a very large sample. In the case of the Jewish vote, however, the exit polls sample an extremely tiny number of people - too tiny to be statistically consequential. As an example, CNN's exit poll is based on an overall nationwide sample of 13,660 voters. Of these 13,660, only 3 percent, or 410 people, are Jewish. According to CNN, 25 percent of these 410 people, or 102 people, voted for Bush.

Relying on a nationwide sample of 410 Jews is unreliable enough. To take a sample of 410 Jews and proclaim that who these 410 voted for means anything is absurd, especially since these 410 people just happened to be Jewish. It's not as though CNN specifically conducted a poll only of Jews.

It gets worse when one focuses on specific states.

Let's take New York, where in the actual vote, 6,868,000 people voted. According to CNN's exit poll results for New York, 8 percent of New York State voters, or 549,000 people, were Jewish. CNN's exit poll claims that only 18 percent of Jews - or 98,900 Jews - voted for Bush in all of New York State. CNN questioned 1452 people for the New York exit poll. 8 percent were Jewish. In other words, CNN only questioned 116 Jews. Of these 116, 21 voted for Bush.

Putting aside for now that with heavily Orthodox neighborhoods like Boro Park, Flatbush, Monsey, the Five Towns, Monsey and Kew Gardens Hills, Bush had to have gotten more than 98,900 Jewish votes in New York State, why the heck would anyone pay any attention at all to a sample of a grand total of 116 people? Nobody knows what neighborhoods within the state these 116 people were from. There is no reason to think CNN polled the Orthodox neighborhoods - after all, this was not intended as a poll of the Jewish vote, but of the collective vote in New York State.

There are results for each New York State county, but I don't think there are results within the districts of each county in New York. But if those results become available, I think they will show that Bush did far better in Orthodox enclaves than elsewhere within each such county. In others, in the districts containing Boro Park and Flatbush, Bush will have done much better than in the rest of Kings County.

(Thursday's Haaretz has a report from the polling station in Boro Park at which I am registered to vote. It's a block away from the house I grew up in and where my parents have lived for 38 years.)

As it is, some county results are revealing. For example, in Rockland County, Bush won a majority, with over 60,000 votes. Not coincidentally, Rockland County includes Monsey and Spring Valley.

But let's not stop in New York. Instead, let's head to Florida, where CNN's exit poll queried 2862 voters. 5 percent - or a total of 142 - were Jewish. According to CNN, 20 percent of these 142 Jews (or 28 people) voted for Bush. Once again, did the pollsters sufficiently cover Orthodox areas like North Miami Beach and Boca Raton? I doubt it, given that CNN had to cover the entire state.

New Jersey is no better. There, CNN polled 1520 people, 7 percent of whom - or 106 - are Jewish. Of those 106 Jewish people, 24 percent voted for Bush. Again, the Jewish sample is too tiny to be taken seriously, and there is no reason to think CNN even polled the towns with large Orthodox populations like Lakewood, Passaic and Teaneck.

But let's take a look at Lakewood, which is located in Ocean County. Is it a complete coincidence that despite losing New Jersey by a wide margin, Ocean County went for Bush by a 60-39 percent margin? Overall, Bush picked up 143,797 votes there.

So please don't take the exit poll results on Jews seriously. If more data becomes available, I will post again to demonstrate further evidence of the unreliability of the polls.
posted on 11/03/2004