Subject: Amanda/John: New Poll of Jewish American show 60% support for Iran Deal
From: Daniel Kalik <[email-masked]>
To: Amanda Renteria <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 15:05:30 -0400

Hi Amanda and John

I hope you are both doing well.  I wanted you share with you a new poll of
Jewish Americans on the Iran deal released by J Street this morning.

Top line is that we find 60-40 support for the agreement and for Congress
voting to approve.  This 20-point margin tracks the 18-point margin that
the LA Jewish Journal found last week in its poll of Jewish Americans as
well as the 18-point margin we saw in our June poll that we went over in
our meeting in Brooklyn earlier this month.

Below is the press release and the full results, pollster memo, cross tabs,
etc can be found at this link
<http://jstreet.org/blog/post/new-poll-majority-of-american-jews-support-iran-nuclear-deal_1>.

I have also attached a one-pager with some key highlights from the poll.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you would like me or our
pollster to walk though this data.

Dan

---------------------------------

Daniel Kalik

Vice President of Political Affairs

J Street

Office: (202)248-5866

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 28, 2015
CONTACT: Jessica Rosenblum, [email-masked], 202.448.1600/202.279.0005
 (m)

NEW POLL: Majority of American Jews Support Iran Nuclear Deal

WASHINGTON—The majority of American Jews support the Iran nuclear deal and
do so at a higher rate than Americans as a whole, according to a new poll.

The poll, conducted by Jim Gerstein of GBA Strategies and released today by
J Street, finds that 60 percent of American Jews support the agreement
reached between the P5+1 and Iran. This, as compared to the 56 percent of
American adults who backed the deal when asked the exact same question in a
July 20 Washington Post-ABC poll.

“These results make clear that American Jews overwhelmingly support this
deal and see this diplomatic agreement as the best way to keep Iran from
getting a nuclear weapon,” says J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “The
numbers just go to show—once again— that the pundits and those who speak
most loudly on behalf of the Jewish community are flat- out wrong in their
presumption that Jewish Americans are hawkish on Iran or regarding U.S. policy
in the Middle East in general.”

The full survey, crosstabs and analysis can be found here.

As a fierce battle over the deal between pro-Israel advocacy organizations
takes shape on Capitol Hill, American Jews want their Members of Congress
to approve the agreement by the same 20-point margin, 60 to 40 percent.

Support for the agreement cuts across demographic groups. There is broad
and, in most cases, majority support for the agreement across the Jewish
community, regardless of age, gender, region, Jewish organizational
engagement and knowledge of the issue.

“These findings underscore that American Jews are a solid base constituency
of support for the agreement,” says Gerstein. “The massive public campaign
launched by AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition against the agreement
doesn’t reflect the views of most American Jews.”

The 20-point margin in favor of the agreement is consistent with the
18-point margin found in the LA Jewish Journal’s survey released last week,
as well as the 18-point margin in J Street’s survey conducted prior to the
agreement.

Jewish awareness of the Iran issue has notably risen since the signing of
the agreement, with 79 percent reporting to have “a great deal” (32
percent) or “some information” (47 percent) about the deal. This marks a
13-point increase in awareness since the J Street survey conducted prior to
the deal.

Despite a high level of awareness about the Iran deal, Jews indicate that
Iran and Israel are low voting priorities, with the two tied for ninth
place in a list of 11 issues they want the President and Congress to
prioritize. Only ten percent listed Iran and Israel as one of their top two
priorities, but it is notable that these percentages are up from six and
seven percent, respectively, from the June poll, and both were at the
highest level ever found in prior J Street surveys.

President Obama’s job approval and personal favorability have increased
slightly since the agreement was reached, and there is also an improvement
in the national mood. Obama’s job approval among Jews now stands at 59
percent, which marks a 3-point bump since J Street’s June survey. Also, his
personal favorability has risen from +7 (48 favorable/41 unfavorable) to
+15 (52 favorable/37 unfavorable), and there has been a 5-point bump to 44
percent who believe the country is headed in the right direction.
Favorability for Benjamin Netanyahu (+18), John Boehner (-54), and the
Republican Party (-51) remains largely unchanged.

GBA Strategies designed the questionnaire for this national survey of
American Jewish adults. The survey was conducted July 21-23, 2015 and
includes 1,000 self-identified Jews. The survey is subject to a margin of
error of +/- 3.1 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. GBA
Strategies contracted the research company Mountain West Research Center to
administer the survey by email invitation to its web-based panel, which is
regularly updated and consists of nearly 900,000 Americans.

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