Talk Elections

according to this website
http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Archive/N-Jewish_American_Voting_Solomon_Project_2012_Main_Report.pdf

they only polled 952 people throughout the whole country (bet you not one was in a area that Jews actually voted for McCain).

and there was no significant difference in polling between any region of the country (the North East finished 2nd out 4 in highest % for Obama)


Since it's very possible that in NYC McCain possibly even won the Jewish vote (he had around 25 eds where he got over 90% plus many more in both the 80% and 70%). he also got 90% in eds in Nassau, Orange, Rockland, and Ocean (NJ) counties. he clearly (look at the results) also did well with jews in many other Jewish parts of the north east.

based on these facts those polls are 100% worthless there is no way that they could even be close to accurate.

In short McCain most likely actually did much better then the polls stated he did (and the Jewish vote numbers are not worth the paper their written on).

You need to accept that most Jews in this country are liberals.

Not all Jews are ultra-Orthodox.

Only 13% of American Jews are Orthodox. Reform and Conservative Jews are much more likely to be politically liberal, and also much less likely to live in heavily Jewish enclaves.

The Orthodox Jews have much higher TFRs than the others. The Reform TFR is estimated at below the 1.8 that is recorded for US Whites, which is already below replacement. I would not be surprised if under-18 Jews were already more Orthodox than Jews at large, especially as Reform/Conservative meld into the American mean and already have low birth rates.

it's still mathematically impossible for those numbers to be accurate.

NE Jews would have to have voted much more liberal then Jews from SF for this to be remotely accurate.

argue based on math.

first of all I think we're around 15% now (though in 2008 it was probably around 13%)


but that's irrelevant to my point

at least 80% of all Orthodox Jews (and they also probably also voted for McCain at a higher rate then other Orthodox Jews out of the NE) live in the NE and easily over half of all Russian Jews live in the NE. (do you want me to list neighborhoods where we can give actual numbers (not polls) of how strong the Jewish vote was against Obama)

the fact that the exit polls don't show any real difference between Jews for McCain from the NE and the West clearly shows that the polls underestimated the right wing Jewish vote in the NE. (and looking at Jewish areas in the NE and comparing it to the west also seems to show that the avg (non Orthodox ext.) NE Jew voted more for McCain (though he still voted for Obama) then the avg Jew in the West Coast)

and if you think it's irrelevant it would take around 28,000 Jews to vote 100% for Obama just to get back to the 74% after only including an area of around 50,000 mostly Jews (the non Jews most likely were a big chunk of Obama's 10%) in Borough Park. (now we would do this again for many other Jewish McCain neighborhoods (including the rest of BP) in NYC, LI, Upstate, NJ, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Mass, CT ext.

What amount of non-Orthodox USSR GOP Jews are there?

it was around 61% in NYC this past year. in Baltimore in 2009 there was a slight majority of all Jewish children under 5 were Orthodox.

in a few years from now I think the majority of all Jewish children born in America will be from Orthodox families.  and a few years later you will be right.  it will take a while till we're majority of the Jewish electorate though.

I don't know the number for the whole NE or country for that matter but In NYC there were 199,000 Russian Jews and 17,000 in LI, and Westchester (around 10% of this could be Orthodox)

and how conservative they are McCain got 80% in part of Brighton Beach (McCain's best non Orthodox ED in NY)

I haven't looked at the numbers, but your proposition that Orthodox Jews must be underrepresented in this survey of which you complain makes the assumption that Orthodox Jews vote at the same rates as non-Orthodox Jews.  I doubt that is the case, since with other religions the degree of religiosity affects voting rates.  Indeed, at one time evangelical Christians tended to shun politics as being too worldly.  It's also possible that Orthodox Jews have different response rates to pollsters.

Yes in Israel Orthodox Jews and Russian Jews are always underestimated in the polls
in addition the Jewish vote was determinedly by randomly placed exit polls (that weren't even looking for the jewish vote specifically) considering that Orthodox Jews (and for that matter Russian Jews) live in much less areas overall (even proportionately to their population) compared to non Orthodox Jews. It's much more likely that they were never even asked to fill out an exit poll.

my point is that if Geographically there isn't a major distinction between the NE and the rest of the country it's impossible that the total number's accurate.

for example it would take 28,000 votes 100% for Obama to counteract (back down to the 74% for Obama) just the heart of Borough Park (these numbers are based on the election results not polls)


The strong McCain vote (that doesn't exist anywhere else even close to what it does in the NE) should mean that if this poll was accurate NE Jews would be the most by far the most for McCain of all the regions listed. and that didn't happen

If you want to mathematically defend these polls (and say they didn't way underestimate the conservative voting Jewish demographics) you would have to argue that Jews (non Orthodox/Russian ext. Jews ) in the NE were voting for Obama at a 90% rate (the secular Jewish neighborhoods don't support that theory) but every where else at a around 74%.  which is also impossible because the only way that could be shown is with a much highers sample size.

could you add up the total turnout in the orthodox Jewish EDs of New York so we can calculate what approximate percentage of NY Jewish voters live in these areas (using the exit poll for the statewide total)?

It's reasonable to argue that Orthodox Jews are underrepresented in exit polls, but unless they refuse/are missed by phone pollsters at unusual rates, you're going to struggle to dismiss the phone polls on the subject -- which are the superior evidence here.

in Israel Orthodox Jews are usaly underestimated in the polls as are Russians.

it's hard to do that because figuring out exactly what the % of Jewish vote was in some areas is next to impossible.

for example in Washington Heights in the most Jewish area McCain got 40% of the vote but the area also has gentrifies and Hispanics (mostly Dominican) which is why it was only 40%.

even in very liberal areas like the Upper West Side the Jewish vote (only) was most likely higher for McCain then the avg Jewish vote outside of the NE.

PS the are were no exit polls specifically for NY jews.

Could you at least try for an estimate?  For instance, you could figure out the overall turnout in an area that's ~100% Orthodox Jewish, versus the 18+ population, and then extrapolate if there's an estimate for the number of Orthodox Jews in New York.

Jews were included in the NY exit poll, also being only 3% of the sample, the results were suppressed in the public release for MoE reasons.  The data are probably available somewhere.  I'm just trying to find some empirical evidence here, however rough.

I don't know why you didn't respond to the phone poll part of my post.

I'm including Russians (when I get to areas with them) and other types of politically conservative jews in this and leaving out the typical American Jew.

I'm doing this by neighborhood so someone can correct my work.  and doing the easiest areas first.

please look at this to see if this looks accurate
Crown Heights I'm assuming it voted 90% for McCain

I'm assuming 3,000 people showed up
for a jewish vote of
2,700-300


Kiryas Yoel (I think there a quite a few votes outside of KJ that I didn't count)
2,757 - Obama 199

You need to find the population for those areas too so we can estimate what percent of orthodox turn out.  Then, we can take a statewide projection and start empirically testing your claim here -- or doing a better job than we have so far this thread.  Get me?

the problem is that the many Orthodox communities are unique from one another and the communities could have drastically different turnout%.

what I'm trying to do now is estimate the actual numbers of the Orthodox vote in different areas

This isn't really true, UTJ get the same as the exit polls, Shas are slightly underestimate (and most of their voters are not really Haredi), and Yisrael Beitenu are slightly overestimated

I heard this from a Israeli pollster.
are you sure they don't weigh the polls in Israel to counteract this fact?

Maybe they do, I can only talk about the results that are published.

Though now that you brought up the topic I think the problem might be related to the direct elections. (there were some weird results in the polling in 96, 99, and 2003)

I think I might have heard this regarding the 2001 election.

There is no flippin' way McCain won the Jewish vote in NYC. End of story.

any sane person who looks at the numbers will relize there is a very good chance that McCain won the NYC Jewish vote.  McCain won almost every single majority Jewish ED and did very well in many other EDs that had a lot of Jews

If you don't see the possibility that McCain won the NYC Jewish vote either didn't look at the numbers or are don't know math.

How are the totals coming out for votes in the EDs and as a share of the population as a whole?

You can win 99% of Crown Heights and Brighton Beach and not have a majority of the Jewish vote in NYC given that there are 1+ million Jews in the city. I am counting secular or non-religious Jews, or Jews who go to services on the high holidays but arent regularly affiliated with a synagogue, as Jews if they identify as such to a pollster.

Note that if McCain won an ED with a few thousand votes in Brooklyn he lost Jews in most parts of Manhattan by a landslide. You have to count Jews who vote against your candidate and aren't part of your community, too, rather than just look at the few neighborhoods you know best and say "he did pretty well here, so I bet I can assume he won across the city."

just for the record Orthodox Jews + Russian Jews are over half NYC's Jewish population.

even in Manhattan McCain did much better amongst Jews then he did amongst California Jews.

some of McCains best areas in Manhattan were only because of the Jewish vote and clearly show he won the Jewish vote big in those areas.

there is no doubt that McCain won the Jewish votes in both the LES and WH.  he probably pulled at least 30% of the Jewish vote on the UWS and UES.  On the UWS I would guess at least 60% of McCains vote came from Jews.


now add to this McCain won the Jewish votes in Riverdale, Williamsburg, Borough Park, Flatbush, Bensehurst, Crown Heights, Jamacia Estates, Kew Garden Hills, Far Rockway ext.

and it's clear from this that the Jewish vote was a lot closer then you think.

my low estimate of the Jewish vote

a few more neighborhoods

on the the Rockway Peninsula (FR, Bayswater, and Belle Harbor)
2,500-250

Lower East Side (very possibly need to add a few hundred more votes for McCain and/or take away some from Obama)
1,000-300

Williamsburg (very possible that a decent number of that Obama numbers are really Hispanic this area has one of the worst voter turnouts in the city)

5,200-1,040

just to clarify
those numbers were my estimate of only the jewish vote.

the problem is that different communities have very different voting habits (turn out is going to be very different in different Orthodox communities)

Who cares? Just, who freakin' cares? You're looking way too into this thing. You can believe whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is that a majority of Jews have voted Democrat for decades. I don't care if you think Jews like me aren't Jews because we aren't that religious.

do you know how to read because all I said was the polls didn't count the types of the population that demographically speaking are not like you at all.

you do know that Jews who demographically speaking voted for McCain most likley live in Jewish enclaves and the Jews that voted for Obama most likely live areas that are mixed.

now look up the term clustering. and you'll see why the exit polls were worthless.

just for the record so far I have this as the undercounted Jewish vote
14,157-2,089
and in NYC 11,400-1,890

Somewhat relevant to this thread:


http://www.gallup.com/poll/156338/Americans-Positive-Negative-Toward-Netanyahu.aspx

ok, then compile this for different orthodox precincts.  The Census has precinct population information, including 18+ statistics.

Right now you're dangerously close to cherry-picking.

understand the fact that the turnout rates between different Orthodox communities drastically differ from one another and need to be worked out differently.

I repeat there is a drastic difference between different Orthodox communities in many ways and each needs to be calculated individually. 

for example here are the breakdowns you want for the most McCain ED in different Jewish neighborhoods in NYC and you'll see why this can't be averaged out.

McCains best ed in Far Rockway 524 votes for McCain, 43 for Obama
18+ breakdown
758 whites
13 blacks
9 hispanics
2 asians
1 other
McCains best ed in Borough Park 322 votes for McCain, 8 for Obama
673 whites
8 hispanics
McCains best ed in Flatbush (Midwood-Gravesend) 364 votes for McCain, 37 for Obama
615 whites
4 hispanics
5 asians
McCains best ed in Williamsburg 211 votes for McCain, 22 for Obama, 1 for other
904 whites
2 blacks
36 hispanics
4 others

This is a pretty good example of how not to do electoral analysis.

There are 500,000+ Orthodox Jews in NYC per NY Jew. He's at about 5% of them so far.

how would you have me do this.  I'm purposely doing this by neighborhood so any of you doubters could check my work for your self and see if you think it's accurate.

besides I'm way over 5% now. thanks to children and the fact that I already did the neighborhood with the worst turnout rates in the city.

Yes, and that's why averages exist.  Al is right -- this is not proper electoral analysis.  Also, the Census gives 18+ populations by district too.  You can keep throwing numbers at us, but until you make an effort to contextualize it in a way that can actually be used to test a falsifiable hypothesis, this is all pretty silly.

those were above 18 populations

this is how you do proper electoral analysis (and why my numbers are accurate and polls are almost always wrong when done in the Jewish community)  an intelligent person does electoral analysis by actual numbers not AVGS.


did any one of you nay sayers (who I might add were too foolish to take me seriously when I correctly said Turner was going to win because of marriage) actually look up the election results in the areas I said and check to see if you agreed at all with my estimations of the Jewish vote.

avgs (even when 100% accurate which there is no way these numbers were) don't tell the whole story my numbers if accurate do.


maybe I shouldn't have put this information on this website because obviously people here are not smart enough to know that 20 +1 + 1 + 1 + 2 practically does not mean the same thing as a avg of 5.

PS my electoral analysis led to won of the most shocking defeats the democratic party ever had in NY.  So I wouldn't bash it to much.

You are currently talking about the 2008 presidential election, not the NY-09 special. The exit polls in question refer to the former election, not the latter.

Excellent, thanks.


"Actual numbers, not averages"?  What do you think an average is, a color?

You're complaining that variance is high when it comes to turnout.  I'm saying that isn't a terminal problem to the analysis.


The Orthodox Jewish vote in 2008 was heavily Republican, as it is in most elections.  This is not new information to most of us.


No, they don't.  You're just showing statistics about a bunch of heavily Orthodox precincts, and claiming Jews are more Republican than exit polls and phone polls suggest.  You're skipping a few steps.


Is there a particular reason you're insulting my intelligence?  Also, yes, those numbers have an average of 5.  The fact that average may not be useful, for some reason, does not mean it doesn't exist.  Please tell me you're not one of those ridiculous people who says things like, "There's no average -- everything is different."  If we can reasonably approximate the average Orthodox turnout for New York, we can use that to test the hypothesis you're asserting.  There's no reason why the average shouldn't be used for that purpose, is there?


Did it?  I'm going to assume you mis-wrote this paragraph.  If your point was that you correctly predicted the unexpected outcome of an election, congratulations, that indicates you're at least as good as that chicken that chose the Super Bowl champion by pecking a photo of the winning quarterback.  Now, let's try to beat that chicken on soundness of methodology!

everything I said here was about the presidential race (which was obvious considering I gave the votes for Obama and McCain)

I only referred to the special election to say that if your going to insult me and say I don't know what I'm doing with out using any actual argument.  I was just reminding you what I was called then.

actually it's all over the place and it depends drastically on the candidate and where their running.


In the 2008 pres election it mathematically impossible for the exit polls in the NE to be accurate with so many McCain voting areas if there was such a low sample size.

can you honestly say that Jewish vote (including Orthodox and Russians) in the NE were not much more for McCain then in it was in the West?


that's not at all what I was doing I was trying to calculate the vote of all Orthodox jews in a certain neighborhood.
what I was doing by cherry picking EDs was just to show you how different each Jewish community was in turnout.  the other EDs in the same neighborhoods have similar %s of Orthodox Jews showing up

in response to the first question because I was insulted first


everything I said (assuming you actually understood it which based on my "unique" writing style is very possible you didn't) would help you figure out what I'm saying.

depends where and when understand the Orthodox Jewish community is really many different Jewish communities that are in many stats at opposite extremes.  The divergence in behaviors between the avg secular Jew in Connecticut and the avg secular Jew in Suffolk County is next to nothing compared to the divergence in behaviors between the avg Orthodox Jew in Far Rockway and the avg Orthodox Jew in Williamsburg.   I do believe that avgs are important informational tool but only if you know what your doing.  averaging out Orthodox trends with out knowing context is 100% useless. 


I did a lot more then just correctly predict the outcome in that race on these forum (not that I'm going to say what I did on the internet to a bunch of liberals)
besides I was referring to a different campaign that I worked on.

Though I do regret saying anything because I appreciate my anonymity.

yes, I know.  i was talking about the 2008 presidential race.


Please, show us your math for this.  I was asking you to do this the entire time.  (See below if you need an elaboration.)


No, I imagine it was more Republican.  Can you stop ascribing me arguments I'm not making and start actually running the analysis required to soundly prove or reject your hypothesis?


...how is that different from what I said you were doing?


Where did I insult your intelligence?  Moreover, unless you actually think I'm unintelligent or arguing unintelligently, why bother?

Also, why did you ignore the rest of that paragraph, which was my substantive criticism of your analysis?


Trust me, I'm doing my best to figure out what you're saying.  Communication problems happen, "unique" writing styles or not.


You're arguing that the means of finding the average might be wrong, not that averaging is inappropriate.


Shrug, man.  I have no doubt that you know more about Orthodox Judaism in NYC than me.  I've spent a few days in Manhattan, and even my more devout Jewish friends will break kosher if they can use someone else's silverware.  That doesn't excuse you from using sloppy methodology in your analysis, though.  Mathematically: Scientifically-processed educated intuition > educated intuition > my intuition.  But just because my uneducated intuition is inferior to yours doesn't excuse sloppy methodology.

Here's what you need to do.  Find a decent representation of Orthodox communities, like a regression model that extrapolates to a theoretical 100% Orthodox community using as many data points (representative, varied Orthodox communities as you can.)  Use that to estimate what percent of Orthodox turn out, and how their votes break down.  You can then use statewide Jewish results from exit polls.  With those sets of information, you can estimate what percentage of non-Orthodox Jews would have to be Democratic voters for the exit polls to be accurate.  This is tricky and may involve small data sets, but dude, it is still better than throwing out numbers and saying "this seems wrong" like you're doing right now.

You seem to have a lot of nervous energy about this issue...dedicate that toward testing this in a sound way and you may prove yourself probabilistically right.  But short of that, this topic is kinda silly season.

but that was the whole proof that the numbers were false
I'll respond to the rest of your post later
then you didn't understand my point from the beginning
look at this
http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Archive/N-Jewish_American_Voting_Solomon_Project_2012_Main_Report.pdf
here is my basic argument
1. the sample size was only 952 people for the whole country (page 4) (so if the Orthodox vote was accurate there wasn't enough of a non Orthodox Jewish vote in the NE to counteract the NY strong McCain vote)
2. page 14 shows that the West voted more for McCain then the NE.

what I was trying to do was to approximate the actual number of the Orthodox vote in the NE and I was just working community by community.  (the Jewish vote in NYS was to small a sample size for the exit polls (which also implies that it underestimated the NYS Jewish McCain vote))

There is a more objective way to do this:

You can order the voter registration database from the NY state board of elections.

And run a Jewish surname check to find out where the Jewish voters are and in which election
districts.  The database will show who voted in recent elections as well as much other information.

Your basic argument is that you think the Orthodox vote must mean that Northeastern Jews are more conservative overall, and because polls find otherwise, the polls must be undercounting the Orthodox.  That's a reasonable hypothesis.  The problem is that you're not testing it in a scientifically sound way -- or really testing it all, so much as searching for evidence to support your hypothesis.


That's what I'm asking you to do.  You have several steps to go before you have statistically useful information.


What, why?  I can see how it would be potentially consistent with that, but how does it imply that?

what I'm doing is going through different Orthodox (and soon also Russian communities) to estimate the actual vote (though I'm also trying to use low estimates for the most part) of conservative Jewish demographics in the NE based on the actual results so we can then figure out (assuming my number is correct) how much the liberal Jewish demographics would have to vote to have the NE numbers meet the actual number in the exit polls for the NE.

The reason I'm working so slowly is because 1 time constraints and 2. to give someone the ability to argue with my estimates for a Jewish neighborhood.

when I'm finished with adding up Jewish neighborhoods (I most likely am going to ignore those demographics in some areas with not that many Orthodox Jews because even though they also voted for McCain it would be almost impossible to accurately guess how many Orthodox Jews voted so I'll assume they didn't vote (because it's I don't think by that point it will make a difference))

I don't see if I'm doing this neighborhood by neighborhood and then adding it up why I need to include census info.

all we have to do when I'm done is figure out approximately how many non Orthodox/Russian Jews voted in the NE and we'll have the information your seeking.  Figuring that out is irrelevant to the population in individual Orthodox areas because we can figure that out based on using Jewish demographics studies.  Using this method I can't figure out why Orthodox turnout will ever be necessary.

assuming I do what I said above (and I have no way of knowing the typical secular American Jewish turnout) is there anything I'm missing.



according to this site (this site is easier to read then the one it quoted from)

(this underestimates NYC, this is because it uses 2002 Federation numbers for NYC and not the recently released numbers)
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/usjewpop.html

total Jewish population in the country 6,588,065 in 2011 (these numbers can also be nitpicked but lets assume their accurate)
this is not of sample size
total Jewish population in NYS 1,635,020
these are of sample size
NE 3,157,670
West 1,613,225
South 1,107,140
MW 710,030

(considering over half of all Orthodox Jews in America are living in NYS I think my point is very clear)

Yes...and unless every orthodox Jew fits neatly into an election district, the best way of doing that is to approximate the average Orthodox Jewish community turnout, and then use the estimate of Orthodox Jews 18+ in New York state times that number to estimate the Orthodox Jewish vote.  Your current method is going to miss a lot, isn't it?


...no

1. I can't accurately estimate their vote (because in general the more Orthodox the neighborhood the more likelihood that the Orthodox Jew in question voted republican)
so even though I will though they voted for McCain they were likely voting at rates much lower then in almost every single Orthodox neighborhood.
2. I can pretend they don't exist because I'm sure I can prove my point with or with out them.


If you were trying to poll Jews ACCURATELY
is this scenario possible
NYS 1,635,020 (to small a sample size to report on)

NE 3,157,670 (good sample size)
West 1,613,225 (good sample size)
South 1,107,140 (good sample size)
MW 710,030 (good sample size)

wouldn't there be a very good chance you'll underestimate the NYS vote

I find it extremely ironic that Jewish Americans tend to be liberal and vote 75-80% Democrat since liberals and the Democratic Party have started to embrace many seemingly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel elements in their party.  Since Jews also tend to be very fiscally conservative, I would think that Republicans would be a better fit for the Jewish community on both those issues.  Then again, I'm a Republican and very much philo-Semitic (a lover of Jews), so I sort of have a vested interest in saying that...

Who else loves a good old tin ear?

many American jews wouldn't care if every single Jew in Israel was killed.

but remember the exit polls were clearly wrong (and jews voted more for McCain) which is why this thread exists.

This thread exists because of your conspiracy theories...

it's not a conspiracy theory it's mathematical facts that you can check up assuming your smart enough to know elementary school math. 

What?  That's not how random sampling works

please elaborate how you think it works and then I'll respond

my basic point is since most Jews who live in Jewish majority area vote very conservative and most jews who live in non Jewish majority areas vote liberal.  since random sampling is random and majority of all areas with jews are a non jewish majority random sampling of the country at large is worthless.  I don't think it's possible to make a accurate poll of the jewish vote that doesn't have a decent sample size from NY (enough to publish by the networks).

Oh the passion of prophet scorned!

Instead of screaming that this or that data is "fake" or whatever, one could make a fairly obvious point that it is dangerous to use data collected for one purpose to make other claims, especially about small subpopulations. The national exit polls are NOT designed to figure out how the Jews (or, for that matter, the Pastafarians) voted: whatever information of that sort is obtained is incidental. If one were trying to do Jewish exit polls, naturally, one would be weighting the sample to match the Jewish population distribution. The village of Kiryat Joel is negligible, if the goal is to figure out whether Obama or McCain will be president, but it is quite a bit more notable when viewed as a Jewish population center. As the data wasn't collected to figure out how the Jews voted, naturally it will be underepresented in the national subsample that happens to be Jewish.

There is nothing special about the Jews here - it would be the same if we tried to figure out how "the rich and famous 1%" voted: I strongly suspect that the national sample doesn't get many people from the Hamptons or the relevant Fifth Avenue blocks.  There are statistical techniques that could be used to try to remedy that, but I doubt they've been used in this case - at least nothingis mentioned about it. In any case, given that it is extremely unlikely that more than a couple Kiryat Joel residents were polled, that wouldn't be easy to do.

To sum up, the point that NY Jew makes is, actually, sensible. It may well be extremely misleading to make claims based simply on the proportion of the Jews in the national exit poll that claimed to vote D or R. There are simply too few Jews and they are simply too unevenly distributed and heterogenous.  One would definitely need to try to reweight the sample, at the very least - and it is not at all obvious that this has been done, nor that enough data has been collected from the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods for this to be doable. At the very least, one would need to know more about the methodology here involved. While I would not go as far as saying the claims of that paper do not match reality, I would definitely support taking them with a big grain of salt until I see more data.

All that is reasonable enough. But NY Jew presents his - actually, quite reasonable - theory in such a way that one is inclined to dismiss it without even considering.

A perfectly valid - or, at least, plausible (to the extent that we don't have enough data to either confirm or refute it) - point. If only you made it without screaming, I would have bothered to read what you are saying a lot earlier.

Random sampling of what? This polls wasn't designed to give a good estimate of the Jewish vote - it's prime objective is to figure out who won. A "Jewish" poll would have to sample New York a lot heavier than Texas. A national poll would need to oversample NY to give reliable data on NY Jewry - and the fact that a separate number on NY is not reported suggests this is not done (sensibly enough). NY ultra-Orthodox are pretty negligible as far as the national exit poll is concerned, but much more important to figure out the Jewish vote.  Given how concentrated the ultra-Orthodox vote is, it is unlikely to have been sampled much. Perhaps some statistical adjustment has been made to take account of this: but it is not obvious. And, in any case, it is very unlikely that substantial enough numbers from those insular communities have been sampled in the first place to make such adjustment doable. Not at all a problem for the national exit poll. But a big problem if you are after figuring out how "the Jews" voted.

And now let me make an insidious point :)

Who cares how the "average" Jews vote? It's the average body temperature in the hospital (including the morgue). Jews, at this point, are not a unified community. There are, properly speaking, the assimilationist American Jews  - "American citizens of the Mosaic faith" to use an old turn of words :)). These are, of course, extremely liberal - probably, even more liberal than the polls suggest. And there are the ultra-Orthodox - the traditionalist isolated community, that continues its autonomous existence in the same way it had existed for millenia in Europe. These, of course, vote differently. If polls asked people to identify, what sort of Jews they are, most likely there would not have been a sufficient sample to make any claims about the latter, but we may reasonably conjecture they didn't vote in such large numbers for Obama :)) These are two very distinct communities, with very little in common between them - why average them out?

thank you for reading it
but how can I scream while typing?

if you can tell me what specifically you didn't like about my tone on this specific thread that will be greatly appreciated.

No, his point is totally valid with exit polls, like you point out.  My exchange with him has been going on for several pages and has moved onto the standard fare about how exit polls aren't representative.  Mainly, I'm still unclear what sort of empirical use he's going for when he adds up these Orthodox communities...as far as I can tell, his point is, "look how many Orthodox Jews, and they're very Republican, so Northeastern Jews must be much more Republican than believed!"  Actually, I'm still not quite sure of his central claim here...sometimes he seems to be saying that national polls are useless for telling how Orthodox Jews vote (duh?); sometimes he seems to be complaining about the exit polls (fair); sometimes he seems to be suggesting Northeastern Jews are much more conservative than reported (his methodology is inadequate for that); and often it's unclear.


?  He listed a bunch of populations, and then claims New York's vote share will be "underrepresented" in a random poll because New York is a smaller population than "the Northeast."  At least, I think that's what he meant; again, it's unclear.  Even if he was talking about non-random sampling (e.g., an exit poll), I still have no idea what he's saying.  You're right about the flaws of the exit poll, but what does that have to do with New York being a relatively small population/subsample?

You seem to find his argument a lot more cogent than I do.  Maybe I'm just being thick.

Yes, the argument is reasonable. Think of it that way. We do know that ultra-Orthodox live in some compact isolated communities in NY state. These ultra-Orthodox form a substantial part of the Jewish population not merely of the state, but of the entire US. Any poll that would have been designed to find out how the "average Jew" voted would take care of actually sampling from these communities.

To the best of our knowledge, no such poll has ever been conducted. Rather, national exit polls were used. As far as the behavior of an "average American" these isolated communities are not particularly important and could well have been missed. Neither, it seems, there has been an attempt to match the weights so that the ultra-Orthodox are properly represented in the sample (in fact, the data on the number of the ultra-Orthodox is not reported and, likely, wasn't even collected). Ultra-Orthodox are entirely inconsequential for the purposes of the national exit poll. But they ARE important for the answer to the question at hand. This MAY be a problem - finding out whether it is, would require looking at the data closely.

This is, I  believe, a well-known statistical problem of dealing w/ very small subsamples. It rears its head, for instance, whenever they try to estimate things about the ultra-rich from the general census surveys - there are just not enough ultra-rich in those samples, and the ones there are may very well be not very representative.

no what I'm saying is that since Orthodox Jews are tremendously underrepresented in the polls.  The polls are useless to giving an accurate figure of the total Jewish vote.

that's the main point

I'm saying that Northeastern Jews are much more conservative than Jews out side of the North East because of the numbers of non stereotypical Jews.

Assuming the numbers to the poll are accurate only for the stereotypical Jews.  the statement I quoted from you is accurate.  and even if the polls are inaccurate for stereotypical Jews the statement will still be accurate if the numbers for the avg stereotypical Jews are similar in all 4 regions.

here's the basic point
this is the breakdown of Jews and Orthodox Jews by region
% of all Jews in the country    % Orthodox Jews in the country
NE 47.9%                                 81.8%
S 16.8%                                   5.3%
MW 10.8%                               5.9%
W 24.5%                                 7%

In addition I said the avg Orthodox Jew in NY Metro is much more Conservative then the avg Orthodox Jew out of it.

this is also can be shown for Russian Jews and other types of non stereotypical Jews who are also disproportionately represented in the NE.

Yes, and I've never disputed that.


That's not true.  The Gallup Poll, among others, aggregates Jewish data -- that's why I earlier mentioned that it matters whether Orthodox Jews were disproportionately likely to be underrepresented in phone polls.  The problems of exit polls are widely known and, again, I haven't disputed them here.


But that argues that New York's Margin of Error is large, not that New York is somehow "underestimated" -- there is no reason to believe that it is any more likely to be underestimated because it is a small subpopulation; any given subpopulation, regardless of its size, is equally likely to be underestimated/overestimated, regardless of the size of the "supra-population."  You're making a fair point that doesn't match the language he used.

Also, none of this really explains why we're (seemingly arbitrarily) adding up the populations of select Orthodox neighborhoods, and the (valid) arguments you're making don't seem possibly related to that project.

OK, so the point was to add up enough Orthodox Jews in New York to show that, if missed (as we can expect them to be by exit polls), they'd affect the numbers in exit polls?  That's a pretty heavy-handed way of doing that, but I agree you're probably right and they're missed.  I don't know why we're looking at exit polls when we have superior information from national phone polls.


Ah, yes, the Jerry Seinfeld Effect.


This has never been a claim I've criticized.  I'm criticizing your methodology, and also suggesting you look at phone polling instead, which is generally much better than exit polls -- in this case especially, but also in pretty much all other cases.

It's also been consistently unclear throughout this thread what you're doing, why, and to what end...ag and I, for instance, came to completely different inferences of a statement that you were previously asked to clarify several times.  Sorry; I might be being impatient, but yeah.

No, but their daily poll adds up to a statistically significant number of respondents from even small sub-populations over time, and they periodically report it.


Fair enough!  Although I'm not convinced that his posts are nonsense-free, even if there's a valid thesis or two in them somewhere...

when it comes to the Jewish vote in various I think I remember a few times that Gallop had some extreme outliers.   this is more true in polls of NY state.  I've seen a few phone polls for the Jewish vote in NY state that had completely different results a few weeks a part (the media of course took both set of polls as accurate)

for example when I saw different opinion polls of the Jewish opinion on gay marriage in NY state Iv'e seen different  polls with more then a 40 point spread.  factually on the ground Orthodox Jews could be as much as 1/3 of the NY state Jewish electorate (the few times I ever saw polls of "Orthodox" jews it was never more then 10% who supported it and even in the most liberal orthodox Jewish communities it never approaches 20% the only "question" is should we become 1 issue voters)  (just to make clear my point is just to show how polling numbers are all over the place)



PS I doubt almost anyone in the most insular (this doesn't mean most religious) Orthodox communities will ever talk to pollsters (these are the type of Jews who would vote in American elections but not Israeli ones).  In other non modern Orthodox communities also I think the response rate would be less then in the avg public by a significant margin.

I also doubt Russian Jewish voters are polled to much do to the language problem.

And why is that, sample size?


Both of these are reasonable hypotheses, but I'm pushing you to estimate what we can expect the impact to be, using some sort of empirical measure.  Right now you seem to be throwing out hypotheses and numbers and not doing much with either -- just kind of hoping something sticks that is compelling enough to prove your thesis.

the media usually reports it as a fickle electorate when talking to the pollsters and sites the exit polls as proof that Jews don't change.

The easiest way to prove my "thesis" would just be to publicize what zip code the polls were taken in.  unfortunately most pollsters are extremely secretive on polling info.  even a county breakdown for Jews only in NY polls would be very beneficial to proving this but I doubt they would do even that.

As it is I think I proved part of this unfortunately I don't think it possible to figure out even close to the true number because even if I can somehow estimate the exact conservative Jewish demographic vote I never will know the exact breakdown of the old polls by Jewish demographics and therefore will most likely do the same problem in reverse.

What I'm foolishly hoping for is that they can try to use certain weights to at least make these polls somewhat accurate.

since as far as I understand pollsters do this by zip code I think the same problem comes into play if they don't specifically look for the Jewish vote because even if most Jews are conservative in NYC most Zip codes's jews in NYC are majority liberal.

in regards to the phone polls I think it's just luck whether or not they happen to pick a zip code that has a lot of Orthodox Jews or miss them.  Remember their top priorities are not the Jewish vote but the overall number.

Quinnip for example almost always underestimates the Orthodox vote (this can easily be shown based on their results 100% at odds with the facts on the ground)

for example in this poll
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/new-york-state/release-detail?ReleaseID=1756

the gay marriage vote is 100% impossible to be true
there is no way that only 11% of NY state Jews are against gay marriage (I don't even think this close to true even with the biggest Bradley effect ever)
I don't think it's possible that Orthodox Jews are less then 20% of the total electorate even using the most liberal estimates of number of voters for non Orthodox Jews and conservative estimates of number of voters for Orthodox Jews.
yet only 11% of Jews are against gay "marriage"
I've spoken to many Orthodox Jews (numerically not % wise) who voted for Obama.
I can count on my hands the number of Orthodox Jews I've spoken to who are in favor of gay "marriage"  I've met Jews who (stupidly) don't think we should be 1 issue voters, but their still against it and openly say so and even protest it.  (remember this is just trying to show you the problem with Jews in the polls)
also from what I can tell (don't want to side track) over 50% of the Russian Jewish community is against gay marriage.
(this whole point is to tell that they obviously underestimated the conservative Jewish vote)

more illustrations of the problem with that poll (and I can show you this in almost all their polls)
 in the Obama-Romney vote in NY state is 72%-24% for Obama. which is right around the number in the national polls.
now compare the Jewish numbers in that poll to these one
http://www.siena.edu/uploadedfiles/home/parents_and_community/community_page/sri/sny_poll/SNY0712%20Crosstabs.pdf

http://www.siena.edu/uploadedfiles/home/SNY051412%20Crosstabs.pdf

even just using siena the numbers for the Jewish vote seem to change the most (I don't think it's the sample sample size and I don't think there are to many if any Jews who changed their opinion on Obama since May (I don't think anyone has ever accused Jews (of any stripe) of being undecided voters))

Phone polls are not done by ZIP code.

You haven't "proven" anything.  You've presented one obviously compelling thesis (the exit poll issue) and then one potentially true thesis (the phone poll issue) which you've "proven" in a way without any clear, consistent, prearranged methodology.  You may well be right

The MoE on those polls -- even if they got a perfect sample -- is nearly +/-10%.  Why would you think it's not sample size?

Again, your thesis is reasonable, but you seem like you're actively setting out to prove your thesis right...which is a problem.

My point about the zip codes was for exit polls. (the last time I reffered to zip codes I meant block)
the other point was referring to phone polls (not sure which ones do this) that take random blocks of phone numbers (which as far as understand would be based on geography)


One thing that might effect phone polls (this would only be a minor effect though) is that since it it done by each individual phone line it might overestimate single person households.

In general Orthodox Jews have some of the highest being married rates.

not sure if they adjust for this factor that certain demographics are more likely to share 1 phone line.

(not sure how cell phone will play into this now.)

Not having read the whole thread, can one get any sense whether Orthodox Jews were underrepresented in the sample? If they were not, then NYJew's case kind of falls apart overall. If they were under-sampled, then potential he's right, assuming that there is a big ideological difference.  Does the below give any clue as to what percentage of the Jewish sample were Orthodox, and how does that comport with the breakdown between sects among the Jews who are voters? What percentage of self identified Jews over 18 call themselves "Orthodox?"  25%?  Wiki says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism) 13%, and of adults over 18 we might be getting down close to 10%.  If so, there is just not much gas in their tank no matter how they vote.

But yes, it does appear to be an important question.

()

but when doing a break down of the USA by region it should make a big difference.  because in the NE it's around double the % of the rest of the country.


ps that info was 8 years old by the time of the 2008 election (that itself can increase the Orthodox  % at least 1 %)
see page 16 (this was the study wiki quoted)
http://www.jewishfederations.org/local_includes/downloads/7579.pdf

That gets us up to 20% in the NE. Which if so, means the Orthodox percentage in the US ex NE must be minuscule, around 3% or something  (I assume at least half the Jews live in the NE). Really?

it varies drastically by location (these are from the last federation study done for each city)
in the Chicago metro (7% of all Jewish households are Orthodox)
in the Cleveland metro (in 2011) 18% of all Jews were Orthodox and 10% of all Jewish households (Orthodox Jews live in other parts of Cleveland (Wickliffe for example) besides those 3 ED you researched)
in the Detroit metro (12% of all Jewish households are Orthodox)

the really low % numbers come in Florida besides the strip from Boca Raton to Miami, the Left Coast, and areas with almost no Jews throughout the country at large outside of the NE.

Your ex NE numbers don't average out to 3% of the Jews outside thereof being orthodox, and 97% of the self identified Jews not. It doesn't matter that Iowa does not have many Jews. It matters what percentage of all 2,500 of them or whatever or Orthodox. Actually, that does  not matter much either. What matters is that are the other major ex-NE Jewish nodes, in particular LA, just 3% Orthodox (some of the smaller nodes you already suggested are much higher)?  That is the math you have to deal with, if just 10% of the Jewish voters are Orthodox, but twice that percentage in the NE. You get shoved out on a limb with a seemingly absurd number as to the Orthodox percentage ex-NE - unless you don't think it absurd.

That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard; not merely by implying that American Jews wouldn't care about millions of deaths, but also implying that American Jews actually don't care about Israelis beyond posturing.

because the study you gave was 10 years old (and 8 years old as of the election) and wasn't as thorough as the local studies

Orthodox Jews have grown since then and it's very likely non Orthodox Jews actually. shrunk since then.

right now Orthodox are most likely a few% point over 10%

OK, but the point is that the overall total Orthodox percentage to make your numbers in the hunt needs to be about 15% of Jewish voters being Orthodox, rather than 10%.  That is a pretty big jump in 10 years.

one problem is there are many  different studies that have completely different numbers.
the point of combining them was just to show % breakdown of location of Jews which is usually the most accurate thing about all these surveys

Right, but I already said exit polls are problematic.

I see no reason why choosing random phone numbers based on registered blocks would undersample Orthodox households...


Again, you're throwing out hypotheses to bolster your intuitions and hypotheses, and not creating methodologies to actually prove them.  I just don't know where you're going with this.  You can create hypotheses that run against your intuitions, too -- so this exercise doesn't seem to be leading to "proving" anything, if that's what you want to do.

the question I have is
is random sampling 100% random?
is there a system that overplays having many different area codes and first 3 digits in a phone number.

do we agree that polls work by household an single people (with out weights) will be over estimated in the polls.

if this is true then Orthodox Jews will be underestimated in the polls.

No.


I'm not sure what you mean -- pollsters may skip dialing phones in ranges they know to not be in use.  Besides the valid household issue, I'm really not sure where you're going here, or what area codes have to do with it.


I don't know how/if pollsters account for this, but this topic is starting to be very frustrating for me for reasons I've stated several times.  It doesn't seem like you're interested in approaching this methodically.

As far as I can tell I already proved that either the exit polls were wrong
either the NE was more for McCain or the rest of the country went more for Obama.

the area codes comment basically means this
if only trying to track the Jewish vote certain area codes and first 3 digit codes have more Jews then others.  thus lets say I would need to take a very high sample size from 718, but if I was doing the whole country (including non jews) as a whole I would take much less.  To prevent this from happening my question is do randomized numbers include a cap on how many from a specific area?


how would you prove it?

in regards to phone polls there are plenty of reasons that would guarantee a underestimate in the polls by Orthodox Jews unless there are some weights in place to counteract it.

there is some proof that Orthodox Jews respond much less than their numbers to the pollsters
see page 25 (and they underestimated the % of Orthodox Jews in the country anyway)
http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Archive/N-Jewish_Values_Survey_2012_Frequencies.pdf.

no, you found a highly intuitive hypothesis for why they might be wrong.  "Proving" it would require substantiating your hypothesis and proving that variables that might make the non-Orthodox NE Jewry substantially more liberal than it is in the West are untrue.

I'm really not trying to be a pedant...but you don't "prove" anything by throwing out hypotheses blindly and then throwing out some data blindly.  The fact that I think your hypothesis is almost certainly true doesn't mean your methodology hasn't been cray-cray.


The polls I'm referencing don't specifically seek out Jews.  They are national polls that, over time, happen to have enough respondents (thousands and thousands) that even proportionally small sub-samples (like Jews) gain hundreds of respondents, and can be reported.  Their sampling is normal for a randomized national poll.

Your area code point is still confusing me.  Are you saying that, if you were specifically looking for Jewish responses, you might limit your poll to Jew-heavy area codes?  None of the polls I'm doing do this.  They also wouldn't, because a representative sample of Jews must be equally likely to sample a Jew in New York as a Jew in Utah.  If the two aren't equally likely to be sampled, the poll would not be of a representative sample.  However, I still feel like I'm missing your point, because capping respondents by area codes would be a pretty nonsensical solution to this problem.


Prove what, your hypothesis?  And which one?


Yes, but again, just stating this is not how science works -- at least not good science.


There's a good start!  You can even assume that Orthodox Jewish response in other surveys is comparably lower (although an MoE would apply) and re-weight accordingly.  Something.  Just something with numbers.  That's all I'm saying -- you can do this objectively, and that's better than just throwing around hypotheses.

Also (I'd check but I have to sleep) not entirely clear on why the parameter sample is assumed to be the true Orthodox percent (although 8% does seem more realistic.)

Pretty impressive that, even in the weighted sample, the same-sex marriage approval numbers come out 81%-18%.

My basic point is that the only way to poll all jews accurately in a national poll would be to have a high sample from NY state.  Which would not happen in a National poll when trying to also poll the whole country accurately.  Thus the likelihood of underestimating NY's Jewish vote in these polls.




There's a good start!  You can even assume that Orthodox Jewish response in other surveys is comparably lower (although an MoE would apply) and re-weight accordingly.  Something.  Just something with numbers.  That's all I'm saying -- you can do this objectively, and that's better than just throwing around hypotheses.

Also (I'd check but I have to sleep) not entirely clear on why the parameter sample is assumed to be the true Orthodox percent (although 8% does seem more realistic.)

Pretty impressive that, even in the weighted sample, the same-sex marriage approval numbers come out 81%-18%.
[/quote]
There is no estimate in recent years that places the Orthodox % at 8%  so assuming there is any basis to this they may be trying to guess the turnout rate.

Also I'm almost 100% sure Orthodox Jews who are more to the right would answer the polls less.

That's incorrect.  A national poll randomly samples people from all across the country.  It would take a while to get a statistically useful sample size of Jews, and that sample size would disproportionately be from New York, but that would not require oversampling New York.  That would, as you point out, make your sample of Jews non-representative.  It also makes no sense for a national pollster who isn't trying to find Jews, but rather finds a healthy subsample because they conduct so many interviews.  Got it?


Right, which makes me wonder where the 8% comes from, if not a phone poll.


Again, hypotheses like these are fine and seem intuitive enough, but there's no reason not to do legwork in trying to prove this in some way.  You're kind of making me work to test your hypothesis when you should be doing it.

As a side-note any exit poll of NE also needs to include Massachusetts Jews in places like Brookline/Newton who probably voted 85%+ for Obama in 2008. Even if McCain managed 37-40% overall of New York Jews(and 85-90% of Orthodox) he quite conceivably could have lost them about 80-20 outside of New York.

Heavily Jewish towns in Massachusetts/Connecticut were pretty heavy for Obama.

Brookline 82.3% for Obama
Newton 76.4% for Obama

It's not just NY state it's also in NJ
some Heavily Jewish areas in NJ went for McCain.

I see no proof that overall the non Orthodox, Russian vote outside of the NE is MORE liberal than in it.

keep in mind the bay area is in the west and was almost guaranteed to be Obama's best area amongst Jews in the country.

The McCain votes in those towns were not coming from the Jewish residents.

proof?

from what I can tell the non Jews in those areas are more liberal then the jews.

exactly what sort of rigorous study did you do to arrive at that conclusion?

This thread has been about 5% discussion of actual results and 95% discussion of wild-eyed guesses as to what they should be without any hard data to back up these feelings.  I'm locking the thread, but if someone has some actual hard data to post or discuss, PM me and I'll unlock it.

I've been convinced to reopen the thread, but I'm moving it to the Polling board.