Jewish Support for Obama Plunges 19% Since '08

TIPP Poll: Jewish Support for Obama Plunges 19% Since '08

Tuesday, 11 Sep 2012, By Todd Beamon

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President Barack Obama holds a slight lead over Mitt Romney in a new poll whose sampling skews heavily towards Democrats – but the president’s support among Jewish voters has plunged 19 percentage points since his election victory in 2008.

The Investor’s Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP (TIPP Poll) of 808 registered voters surveyed Sept. 4-9 showed the president leading his GOP challenger 46 to 22 percent.

The survey, conducted during the Democratic National Convention, oversamples Obama’s party by about 7 percent, resulting in the president polling higher among independent voters than in several other major media polls, The Washington Examiner reports.

When these factors are accounted for, the data place Romney ahead by 5 points, 50 to 41 percent. The survey has a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

But more starkly, the TIPP Poll shows that Obama’s support among Jewish voters has plunged to 59 percent, from 78 percent in 2008, notes Jonathan S. Tobin at Commentary Magazine.

Obama’s showing is lower than Jimmy Carter’s 45 percent showing in the 1980 election against Republican Ronald Reagan and Independent John Anderson. It’s also below the 64 percent Michael Dukakis received in 1988, Tobin writes.

The current TIPP Poll, however, found that Romney received 35 percent of the Jewish vote, up from the 21 percent Arizona Sen. John McCain attracted in 2008.

Six percent of Jews indicated they were currently undecided, according to the poll. In 2008, 1 percent of Jewish voters cast their ballot for a candidate other than Obama or McCain, the poll indicated.

In his Commentary article, Tobin notes that Obama’s drop among Jewish voters is unmatched in any other demographic groups. He attributed the drop to the administration’s relationship with Israel.

“While some losses in Jewish support could be put down to disillusionment with his economic policies that is shared across the board, the only conceivable explanation for this far greater than average loss of Jewish votes is the administration’s difficult relationship with Israel,” Tobin writes.

Tobin also notes that Jewish voters also grew wary from the DNC debacle over the omission of God and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the party platform and the rancor over the items being restored amid boos and “no” votes from convention delegates.

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