By Josh Pasek
Republican Jews have begun to gloat about new Gallup numbers that show McCain losing to Obama among Jews by only a 30-point margin “If the election were held today.” What they don’t seem to notice is those critical qualifiers at the end. While Republicans have a single candidate who emerged unscathed from a clean and quick primary, Democrats are still in the middle of their primary season. And both candidates have been relatively strongly hit. So what does it mean that more Jewish voters are responding that they might choose McCain in a general election? The answer is not much.
David Moore, a former senior editor at Gallup, explained in a Stanford University lecture last autumn that the “if the election were held today” language can be both confusing and biasing (1). It, along with follow-up questions, strongly encourage undecided voters to choose a side often long before they are ready to do so. In general election polling, this kind of technique usually inflates the number of voters for each candidate. While only 30% of voters make up their mind by a month from the election, they often split somewhat similarly to the 70% of undecided voters who, if they truly had to make a choice “today,” will give a response — however considered. In a primary, however, we can expect the influence of this type of polling to be much more biased. The survey technique is almost guaranteed to inflate McCain’s numbers as compared to either Democrat.
