The Real Jewish Vote
Not In The Exit Polls
EDWARD B. MILLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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t's been said that American
Jews earn like Episcopalians
and vote like Puerto Ricans.
That means, demographical-
ly, Jews should be Republicans
but when it comes to voting,
they're liberal Democrats.
That Jews vote monolithical-
ly for Democrats has been the
conventional wisdom over the
years and supported by exit poll
findings. But the exit poll num-
bers on which conventional wis-
dom rests are methodologically
flawed and have grossly under-
estimated the real Jewish vote.
A closer look at the exit polling
process yields a far different con-
clusion from those most often cit-
ed by the media and other
election experts.
According to exit polling, de-
spite the fact that the majority of
whites voted for Republican can-
didates in 1994, 80 percent of
Jewish voters cast their ballots
for Democrats. With numbers
like this, it's easy for Republicans
to write off the Jewish vote.
The fundamental problem
with exit polling is with the
methodology. Exit polling ex-
trapolates a national trend based
on select congressional voting
data. While one's congressional
vote may be an accurate predic-
tor of one's party affiliation, and
a legitimate way to determine
how the country has voted, exit
polling fails to represent accu-
rately certain voting groups that
sharply split their ballots be-
tween local and statewide races.
Exit polling also assumes a com-
petitive contest between two can-
didates, which is not always the
case.
Where methodological prob-
lems arise is in the district and
precinct selection process. While
nearly half the districts across
the country are selected for exit
polling, in order to survey enough
Jewish voters to make national
voting assertions, several districts
with high Jewish voting concen-
trations need to be selected.
Then, within each district, a
precinct is chosen where the exit
polling is conducted.
Suppose, for example, that exit
polling were conducted in New
York's 9th and 11th districts. The
9th, represented for the past 15
years by Rep. Charles Schumer,
has a large Jewish voting popu-
lation. In the past two general
elections, Mr. Schumer received
73 percent and 89 percent, re-
spectively, of the general election
Edward B. Miller is director of
research for the Polling
Company in Washington, D.C.
vote. Were exit polling conduct-
ed in this district, it would be no
wonder that 80 percent of Jews
reported voting for a Democrat.
As a Jewish Democrat, Mr.
Schumer not only appeals to Jew-
ish voters, he faces no credible op-
position to whom he could lose
votes, much less an election.
The 11th has been represent-
ed for the past 13 years by De-
mocrat Major Owens. Mr. Owens
received 94 percent of the vote in
1992 and 89 percent in 1994. Ac-
cording to the Almanac of Amer-
ican Politics, his district has the
largest percentage of blacks of
any congressional district in the
country, but it also includes the
Orthodox Jewish enclave of
Crown Heights.
Polling data has demonstrat-
ed that Orthodox Jews are the
most likely Jewish subset to be
politically conservative and vote
for Republican candidates. But
exit polls of the llth District most
probably occur in a precinct that
is black, and therefore represent
black voting patterns, while ig-
noring politically conservative
American Jews.
More importantly, even under
ideal circumstances, if polling had
been conducted in Crown Heights
and in a politically conservative
Continuing to refer
to the Jewish vote
as monolithically
Democratic is
inaccurate and
harmful.
section of Mr. Schumer's district,
the results probably would not be
much different. This is because
exit polling only measures con-
gressional balloting, but neither
winning candidate faced much
opposition in 1994. Tames Mc-
Call, Mr. Schumer's opponent, re-
ceived 27 percent of the vote —
three times that of Gary Popkin,
Mr. Owens' opponent.
When marginal candidates
such as Mr. McCall and Mr. Pop-
kin face strong incumbents, it
should come as no surprise that
the Jewish vote is listed as 80
percent in favor of Democratic
candidates. It's only surprising
that the figure is not higher.
Further, in 1994, 37 percent of
New York Jews voted for Re-
publican George Pataki for gov-
ernor, and in 1992, more than 40
percent voted for Sen. Alfonse
D'Amato. It is hard to compre-