A poll released today by the Siena Research Institute shows a surprising result among Jewish voters, who have largely voted Democrat in national elections.
The
Siena Poll of New York likely voters is really going to upset the tummies of the Democrat Party, if they have any sense at all.
New York Jews have not voted Republican en masse since Ronald Reagan and as of six months ago didn't appear to have changed.
The tide has seemingly turned though. In the Siena Poll
(cross tabs) section is a demographic which should make Mr Obama start thinking about what to do with all of his spare time after next November.
The issue would be Sen. John McCain garnering 57% of the New York Jewish favorable view and Mr Obama getting a miserable 38% favorable rating.
That is not good news for the Obama/Biden camp, since the last time this happened Ronaldus Maximus Reagan won in such a landslide the world doesn't even remember who his opponent was. (actually the guy who ran against Reagan went on to get a job building houses for free and roaming the globe trash talking the United States and Israel)
In all, John McCain outscored Obama in most of the categories when the Jewish vote was tallied. And in many of the areas John McCain outscored Barack Hussein Obama even when all likely voters were tallied. particularly in areas such as security and patriotism.
The Jewish vote really shouldn't be able to make much of a difference in the total electoral process, but it does tend to do so. Jews make up approximately
2% of the US population, but also have the ability to swing quite a few of the states in which they make up a larger percentage of the population. New York and Pennsylvania are two of those states according to
Jeffrey S. Helmreich at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JPCA)
With fully
55% of the Jewish voters responding they have followed the national race closely, the poll seems to be an indicator of how much the Presidential race concerns a group who tend to focus on the outcome of support or non-support for Israel. Mr. Obama may have been taking the Jewish vote for granted in some of the states he feels are "locked in", but these this poll shows there are no guaranteed voters outside the Far Left and Far Right voters who will always vote for a
Yellow Dog if he runs on the (pick one) ticket.
One other not so surprising statistic which came from the poll shows
50% of Jewish voters consider John McCain very qualified while only 18% of the Jewish respondents believed Obama to be very qualified.
At this time there are no other comprehensive voter polls which show the complete demographic shift for Sen. John McCain, but the numbers (despite being from a relatively small number of respondents) show a shift which is certain to give pause to the Obama camp and reason to reflect on where their priorities lie.
