News giants are getting a lot wrong about how Democrats pulled off last week’s election successes. When I was fact-checking misguided reports about the midterms for the latest episode, I came across some especially wild claims about Jewish voters.
Beware these claims. They’re baseless, make no sense, and extrapolate based on tiny numbers. For one claim in particular making headlines, the sample size is smaller than the number of people who probably live on your block.
Welcome to today’s media. In the rush to make sweeping conclusions, they ignore the two ingredients of truth: facts + context. Everyone who wants to understand America’s political landscape needs a clear picture of who voted and how.
Let’s start with this wild exchange on CNN between two analysts:
Jason Rantz: Democrats went from 66% to 50% Jewish support, and Jewish Republicans went from 11% to 22% in this last election…
Bakari Sellers: As the polls show now, Abdul El-Sayed actually won Jewish precincts and won Jewish voters by more than anybody would have ever imagined going into this race based upon the type of campaign that was run against him and the type of campaign he ran.
As the rare person who actually looks at and understands the available data, my response was: Huh? Here’s what we really know about Jewish voters in this election.
