Jewish vote

Recently I posted about the overwhelming support for the Democrats from Jewish, Asian and young voters this year. I was contacted by the Republican Jewish Coalition who wanted to claim a much higher Republican vote from Jews (based on their own exit polls) than was claimed by the National Jewish Democratic Council claimed (based on independent exit polls). I reported both polls also added a note from the Philadelphia Jewish Voice newspaper indicating that while there are many Jews running for office or elected to office as Democrats, there are very few Jewish Republicans in office or running for office.

The National Jewish Democratic Council and Republican Jewish Coalition differ on their claims of what percentage of the Jewish vote went Democrat this year, but they are both partisan organizations and therefore biased. I can now add that the non-partisan, unbiased American Jewish Committee's analysis of the 2006 election takes the same numbers that the National Jewish Democratic Council does:

If Lieberman’s nominally independent candidacy tested (and largely won) the party loyalty of Jewish Democrats, the community was less conflicted in other contests. In fact, exit polls showed Jewish voters overwhelmingly returning to form in this election – as reliable supporters of Democratic candidates. Over the years, Republican fortunes have risen and fallen among Jewish voters; in his 2004 re-election, President Bush was reported to have

I got a nice email from the Communications Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition in response to my recent diary discussing the Jewish Vote in this election. I want to say I appreciate her response. She claims that the exit polls showing the overwhelming Democratic Jewish vote I mention in the above diary on are inacurate and that Jews are now voting 26% Republican according to exit polls done by her organization rather than the 12% indicated by the media-run polls cited by the National Jewish Democratic Council that I mention in my previous diary.

I am happy to pass along her comment, but I should say that I believe the NJDC numbers to be reasonable and to correspond with my experiences. Both NJDC and RJC are partisan and their numbers should be taken with grains of salt. However the RJC poll is partisan, while the NJDC is citing a non-partisan poll conducted by the media. Doesn't necessarily make the NJDC data better, but the partisanship of the polls must be taken into account.

The Philadelphia Jewish Voice has an interesting and relavent article showing that there are very few Jewish Republicans in office or running for office. When one looks at who is running, there is still a sharp preference for the Democratic Party.

The young are supposed to not care enough to vote...and even if they do, they are supposed to be more conservative than when I was young. And we are always being told that the Jewish vote is going Republican because of Israel, under the insane assumption that killing Muslims helps Israel.

UPTDATED: We are also told that Asian Americans vote Republican...that too proves false.

These are myths. They are myths put out by a conservative media and they were proven wrong in this election.

THE YOUTH VOTE:

From Reuters:

Young Americans voted in the largest numbers in at least 20 years in congressional elections, energized by the Iraq war and giving a boost to Democrats, pollsters said on Wednesday.

About 24 percent of Americans under the age of 30, or at least 10 million young voters, cast ballots in Tuesday's elections that saw Democrats make big gains in Congress. That was up 4 percentage points from the last mid-term elections in 2002.

"This looks like the highest in 20 years," said Mark Lopez, research director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which compiled the data based on exit polls...

Rock the Vote, a youth-and-civics group, said young voters favored Democrats by a 22-point margin, nearly three times the margin Democrats earned among other age groups and dealing a potentially decisive blow to Republicans in tight races.