Opinion by Martin Gottlieb

There are many exit polls, wherein voters are confronted at the polling place about how they voted. Any organization that wants to do such a poll can. But there’s one big one. It’s done by a group of major news outlets.

After this election, it showed that Kamala Harris had won 79% of the Jewish vote. Jewish Telegraphic Agency began its report on this finding by saying, “The first rule of exit polls is to be careful about interpreting early exit polls.”

But the number was very widely reported, especially in Jewish and Israeli publications.

To many experienced observers of these things — otherwise known as Jewish political junkies — the number didn’t feel right. It would have been easily the best showing for the Democrats in a very long time. Really? In 2024? Even as the country as whole was trending a few points to the Republicans?

In the run-up to the election, all manner of things were happening that seemed to raise the possibility of the Jewish vote moving to the right: the dramatic revelation of widespread antisemitism on the campus left; the divisions within the Democratic Party over Gaza and related Oct. 7 issues, even as Republicans seemed united in support of Israel; the reports of huge donations to the Trump campaign by wealthy Jews. And more.

True, there were indications pointing in the other direction, including — by some lights, anyway — Donald Trump’s pugnacious approach to Jewish voters as a group. Another one, perhaps: that Harris’s husband is Jewish.

But 79%?

Well, since those early post-election stories, a press consensus has developed that other polls were more accurate. The Associated Press and Fox combined on a poll that put Harris at 66%. (Fox has a respected polling operation.) Other polls ranged near there.

So now the conventional wisdom is that, rather than having their best showing in decades among Jews, the Democrats lost ground compared to the last two elections, even if not much.

Specifically, the most widely reported set of stats is that Harris got 66%, compared to Biden’s 69% in 2020 and Hillary Clinton’s 71% in 2016.

Of course, it should be noted the numbers about 2020 and 2016 were also soft and debated in their time. Somehow these numbers harden with time, as “facts” get repeated and old uncertainties are forgotten.

But, OK, let’s say Harris did 3 percentage points worse than Biden. What that says is the Democratic drop-off among Jews was about the same as the drop-off in the nation as a whole. Trump got 46.8% of the total popular vote in 2020 and 49.9% in 2024.

In the weeks after the election, political journalists churned out stories about how the Democrats lost voters in this place and that place, this demographic group and that one. But it was all pretty much one story: There was a small national tide in favor of the Republicans, as there generally is for one party or the other.

All reports about the Jewish votes are based on polls. People don’t even have to be reminded these days about the dangers of polls. All manner of complexities are at play. One has to wonder, for example, if — in this day of rising antisemitism — the Jews confronted by exit pollsters weren’t a little less likely to identify themselves as Jews than they might be under other circumstances.

But surely this much can be said: In the big picture, the stability of Jewish voting habits is remarkable. And it seems to suggest — this time more clearly than ever — that most Jews are not voting on Israeli matters (a point that apparently cannot be thumped into Trump’s head). Another possibility, of course, is that a lot of Jews did vote on Israel and simply chose the Harris view over Trump’s.

Some polling on that may be in order. But it would be tricky, because the kind of people who prefer her views on Israel are presumably predisposed to vote liberal anyway.

Retired Dayton Daily News editorial writer Martin Gottlieb is advisor to The Dayton Jewish Observer.

To read the complete January 2025 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.