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TO:
FR:
DT:
RE:

Interested Parties
Nathan Klein, Lead Pollster Olive Tree Strategies
August 2, 2015
Iran Deal Not Popular with American Jews

Which poll to trust? That always seems to be the question I am asked. As with all things the answer
involves shades of gray. But, the bottom line is that any honest evaluation of the data shows a
Jewish community divided over the Iran deal, and the word support does not belong.
To be clear, I am a pollster. I have done opinion research at every level of U.S. political campaigns,
have worked on over 1,000 projects, and have completed projects on five continents (Im still
missing South America and Antarctica penguin poll anyone? to complete the set). Polling is my
business, my livelihood, my passion, and my talent. Recently, Fortune Magazine named me the
Pollster on the Campaign Dream Team of up-and-coming talents you want to know.
To the matter at hand, there have been three polls recently released on the issue of the Iran deal
among the American Jewish community, mine (sponsored by The Israel Project), as well as one
from the LA Jewish Journal and one from J Street. In our poll, we found

Within the American Jewish community, 47% disapprove of the deal and 44% approve.
When looking to Congress for action, 45% call for rejecting the deal and 40% for approving.
A majority (52%) disapproves of President Obamas handling of the nuclear negotiations
with Iran, his worst rating across nine different topic areas.
The full results from the survey can be found on The Israel Projects website.

Recently, my polling has been on the receiving end of criticisms laughable in their attempts to
discredit work showing opposition to the Iran deal.
First, lets make one thing clear, the J Street poll is dishonest. It uses biased question language that
pre-supposes the deal is successful (a point of contention among foreign policy experts), and the
pollster for J Street openly admits the bias in his question. The supposed excuse being that he
wanted to compare his findings to other publicly available data, but he could have easily used the
language from the neutral and widely respected Pew Research Center if that was the goal.
The J Street poll also does not allow respondents to opt-out of the question or provide a dont
know / no opinion response. Uriel Heilman of the JTA points out, while the deals opponents tend
to be adamant in their opposition, many Jewish proponents are openly ambivalent. If you accept
this hypothesis, it means that forcing an answer will inherently bias the results towards supporters,
as the opponents are more likely to speak up un-prodded.
Nobody should be surprised that this poll is biased, J Street spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
advertising in support of the deal long before it was finalized or the details were known (spending
announced on 6/23/15, three weeks before the final deal was signed).
However, this still leaves us with two polls that have seemingly contradictory results (from The
Israel Project and the LA Jewish Journal, which found 48% support the deal, while 28% oppose).
How do we put these in context to understand what is happening? First, we look at the differences:
1. Collection Method: I used an online methodology while LA Jewish Journal used a telephone
poll. I firmly believe that for an issue poll, online is just as strong, so long as you have
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enough respondents (and we had double the respondents at 1,034 compared to 501 for
LAJJ). I have used online polling extensively for the past two political cycles. If anything,
online polling leans a little more liberal and young, two traits that would bolster supporters
of the deal if it had any impact at all.
2. Selecting Respondents: Both polls ask for religion, and have over a dozen possible
answers. The difference is that we only kept self-identified Jews in our sample, LAJJ asked a
follow-up of all non-Jews if they identify as Jewish for any reason. This leads to a broader
sample, I believe to the detriment of the data (since I dont consider someone who has a
Jewish grandparent but does not self-identify with the religion to be a part of the
community for the purpose of measuring opinion).
Clearly the researchers at LAJJ disagree or they would not have asked the question. Both
methods are valid and have their supporters and detractors, but the point is that it can
differentiate the results.
3. Question Order: To be as non-biased as possible in our questionnaire design before
measuring the Iran deal, we ask about Climate Change and Trade Promotion Authority as
lead-ups to the Iran section. This gives us both data for comparison (47% had heard a
lot/some about TPA in the Jewish community, 84% about Iran Deal, gives an interesting
sense of scale), and prevents us from injecting any external framework into the Iran debate.
In the LAJJ poll, the two questions asked immediately before the Iran question were images
(favorable/unfavorable) of President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. This creates a framework for evaluating the deal that pits these leaders (both
relatively popular) against one another in a community where 69% voted for President
Obama in 2012.
4. Political Demographics: The only political demographic question that the LAJJ asked was
ideology. They found 53% identify as liberal, 28% moderate, and 16% conservative, a +37
Lib-Mod difference score. My survey found 45% liberal, 29% moderate, 22% conservative, a
+23 Lib-Mod difference. Thats a pretty big difference between the two surveys.
In my survey we asked our respondents for whom they voted in 2012, we then weighted the
data (only among those who voted, some were not able to or are not registered to vote) so
that the population reflected this known political variable.
According to the national exit polls in 2012, 69% of Jewish voters supported Obama and
30% Romney. In our poll, it is 69% Obama among those who voted, which is 62% of the
overall sample (notably the same as the J Street poll, which was politically balanced despite
the poor question language).
As near as I can tell there is no political balancing of the data from LAJJ. This may explain the
difference in the one comparable statistic (ideology), and not measuring political
attitudes/history makes the entire data set suspicious to me. The Iran deal is an inherently
political issue, but we have no idea who these respondents are or if their political leanings
in any way line up with the American Jewish community.

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5. Question Wording: There are differences, subtle but critical. I clearly believe my wording
is more honest, the researchers for LAJJ clearly believe the same about their poll. Neither of
us would have put our survey in the field if we believed differently. So, taking a closer look
The Israel Project: Recently, the United States and five other countries (known as the
P5+1) reached an agreement with Iran regarding the lifting of economic sanctions on
Iran in exchange for concessions in Irans nuclear program. Based on what you know,
do you approve or disapprove of this agreement? (Respondents were also given a
Dont Know / No Opinion response option, though that language does not appear in
the question itself.)
LAJJ: As you may know, an agreement was reached in which the United States and
other countries would lift major economic sanctions against Iran, in exchange for Iran
restricting its nuclear program in a way that makes it harder for it to produce nuclear
weapons. Do you support or oppose this agreement, or dont know enough to say?
Some critics of my question say that using the word concessions creates bias against the
deal. And yet, the deal reduces rather than eliminates Irans centrifuges. The deal eliminates
the nuclear capacity at Arak, but not at Fordow. These are nothing if not negotiated
concessions, rather than outright capitulation. I would be happy to test the deal with
different language when we get a different deal.
The question from LAJJ posits that the deal makes it harder for [Iran] to produce nuclear
weapons. The problem is that this is the exact issue up for debate by foreign policy experts.
Some do not believe this deal makes it harder, many experts believe that this deal makes it
much easier for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon in the long term (and in geo-politics, 1015 years is not that long). They point to concerns such as the expiration date on the deal, the
huge financial windfall for Iran, and continued nuclear research as reasons that this deal
may put Iran on the glide path to nuclear breakout.
The question from LAJJ presents an assumption that the deal will be successful in achieving
this goal, rather than presenting the terms of the deal itself for respondents to either
support or oppose. This bias, this assumption that the deal will work, precludes many
possible outcomes, and this data cannot be considered unbiased.

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At the end of the day, the number one reason you should trust my data because if I had wanted to
juice the numbers for opponents of the deal, I could have easily asked this question:
Recently, the United States entered into a deal with Iran that will give Irans leaders $100$150billion, allow Iran to purchase advanced weaponry and ballistic missiles, and will allow
Iran to continue nuclear research and enrichment on a small scale. In exchange, Iran will
reduce its number of centrifuges, and maintain only some of their current nuclear facilities.
Iran has also promised that it will not seek a nuclear weapon.
Iranian leaders say that what matters is Western acceptance that Iran will continue to have a
nuclear program, and that when the agreement ends in 2025 Iran will be able to enrich
uranium and plutonium without limits.
Based on what you know, do you approve or disapprove of this agreement?
Bottom Line: As a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, I would have (and hopefully will
someday) support a deal that prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But, as a pollster, I am
obligated to measure American Jewish opinion of what this deal is today, not what some hope it can
achieve.
Today, the Jewish community is split, with a slim plurality opposing the deal. But, as the rest of our
survey shows, the more that the community learns about this deal the more opposition rises.

-Nathan Klein is the founder of Olive Tree Strategies. He has been working in political polling since
2008, including as the Director of Polling and Analytics for the National Republican Senatorial
Committee during the 2014 elections, and as the Deputy Polling Manager on the 2012 Romney
presidential campaign. He has been conducting research on American opinions of the Middle East
since 2008.
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