Beware of These Polls of the Jewish Vote

Wondering why polls from respected sources did not agree on the Jewish vote percentages for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump? Wondering if the polls purporting to tell us the share of the Jewish vote that went to Zohran Mamdani are accurate?

When it comes to the Jewish vote, not all polls are created equal. Polls released thus far on the Jewish vote in the New York mayoral race are almost certainly flawed and should not be relied upon.

The Jewish Voters Resource Center (JVRC) published an analysis of the 2024 Jewish vote that contains an invaluable section (slides 12 and 13) explaining why different polls of the Jewish electorate sometimes yield different results. 

The JVRC analysis explains the importance of properly weighting for Jewish denomination (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and unaffiliated). Orthodox Jews in particular, who are 9% of the Jewish population nationally and probably about 30% of New York City’s Jewish population, vote for Republicans significantly more than Jews of other or no denomination.

Polls not specifically designed for Jewish respondents do not ask for denomination, which means that the sample they poll cannot be weighted to accurately reflect the makeup of the Jewish population. 

Perhaps more important is whether the polls include people who are Jewish but do not consider their religion to be Judaism. According to Pew Research, these Jews are 27% of the American Jewish population. This group votes disproportionately Democratic. 

Any poll that does not ask additional questions to determine whether those who initially describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, or having no religion are actually Jewish will not get an accurate picture of the Jewish electorate. 

As Seth Ackerman pointed out, “it’s entirely conceivable that Larry David would have ended up being classified as not Jewish” by a poll that did not ask screening questions to ensure that those who are Jewish but do not consider their religion to be Judaism are included as Jews (rather than in another category, such as atheist or no religion).

In addition, we should be wary of polls that draw broad conclusions based on precinct-level data or polls of certain neighborhoods, as they are usually not representative of the Jewish electorate as a whole.

Further, we should be suspicious of conclusions drawn from crosstabs of Jewish voters from polls not specifically designed to poll Jews. The recent polling in the New York mayoral race appears to fall into this category. Not only do these polls fail to properly weight the Jewish sample by denomination or take into account Jews of no religion, but the margin of error for crosstabs is greater because the sample size is smaller (Crosstabs are breakdowns of survey answers based on particular variables, such as religion, as opposed to “toplines,” which are the polling results as a whole). 

If you can’t tell from the information released about a poll whether its methodology was sound, it probably wasn’t. A poll that properly measures the Jewish vote will include in its methodology description how it weighted for denomination and whether it included Jews of no religion. Don’t share or rely on polling results unless you are sure the poll took the necessary steps to ensure accuracy.

Don’t worry about who paid for the poll. A poll is not better because it was conducted by a seemingly unbiased source. No reputable pollster would fudge the results to please its clients. A pollster who fudges the results will soon find itself with no clients.

Dismissing a poll simply because you don’t like the ideology of the pollster or the person paying for the poll is foolish (dismissing a poll because the questions seem biased is another story).

Bottom line: Before putting any stock in a poll measuring the Jewish vote in any election, let alone sharing such a poll, don’t rely on media accounts of what the poll found. Look at the poll itself (it shouldn’t be hard to find, and if you can’t find it, that alone is a bad sign), read the methodology section, and see if the criteria listed above have been met. If not, hit delete and move on.

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