(Obamulkes.com)
Every year, Republicans convince themselves that
this is the year they make significant headway into the Jewish vote. Then every year, those hopes are tragically dashed. In 2008, Obama won the Jewish vote
78-21.
In 2010, the national Jewish vote was too small to register in the exit polls (the Dem base sat the election out). But a post-election poll commissioned by J-Street found that Jewish voters voted for Democratic candidates 66-31. It's not even close to an apples to apples comparison (exit poll vs phone poll), but it's certainly plausible, particularly since the smaller GOP Jewish vote would turn out in greater numbers than demoralized Democratic-leaning Jewish voters. It could be analogous to the white vote that year, in which Democrats won just 37 percent of it.
Indeed, Republicans won women in 2010. No one is pretending they'll repeat that feat this year.
Still, like Charlie Brown, Republicans really thing that this is the year they'll be able to kick Lucy's football. Witness Rick Santorum take a whack:
“We’ve seen a dramatic transformation in this country,” said Santorum, “with Jews all across this country now understanding that the values of the Republican Party are in concert with theirs.”
Or
Michael Medved:
Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, so often described as an impediment to his political prospects, might work to his advantage with one crucial segment of the electorate: Jewish voters.
There's more, but you get the point. The first indication that Republicans are whiffing yet again? The Jewish share of the GOP primary turnout in Florida was down to 1 percent this year, from 3 percent in 2008. In Nevada, Jewish voters were 2 percent of the GOP turnout in both 2008 and 2012. In Arizona, they notched 0 percent of the primary vote this year, compared to 1 percent in 2008. In Illinois, it was the opposite—0 percent of the GOP primary vote in 2008, compared to 1 percent this year.
In other words, it's all float within the margin of error, and certainly no massive wave of newfound support for the GOP.
Back in March, a poll from the American Jewish Council didn't give Republicans much hope:
Knowledge Networks for the American Jewish Council. 3/14-27. American Jews. MoE 4.8% (9/6-21 results)
Barack Obama 61
Mitt Romney 28
Now, Gallup (which hasn't been friendly to Obama) has further bad news for Republicans hoping to finally kick Lucy's football:
Gallup has started tracking Jewish voters for the 2012 presidential elections, and its findings are commensurate with other polling, with President Obama enjoying a 35 point lead over Mitt Romney.
The poll of 576 Jews culled from the pollster's daily tracking of registered U.S. voters from April 11-June 5, found that Jewish voters favored Obama over the former Massachusetts governor and all-but-certain Republican nominee 64-29.
And check this out:
It also is commensurate with polling in the same period by Gallup during the 2008 election, when Obama vs. John McCain, the then GOP candidate, scored 61-32, 57-35 and 62-31 in April, May and June of that year, respectively.
Not only is Obama's Jewish support not slipping, it is
up four points from the best Spring polling in 2008. And as you can see by Obama's final 78-21 margin with Jewish voters in 2008, he has a history of over-performing the polling with this demographic.