The decline of polling firms has been part and parcel of the general decline of institutional trustworthiness. There’s still a market for “internal polls” for political campaigns, but there’s also an abundance of “poll trolls” and highly dubious clickbait polls.
The media is happy to pick up the clicks from the clickbait without reporting basic questions about the firms behind the numbers.
Take this latest one loudly promoted by the JTA, with a bold headline: “Poll finds a quarter of US Jews think Israel is ‘apartheid state.’”
The JTA does note that the survey was “commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute, a group led by prominent Jewish Democrats.”
What it doesn’t note is that the poll was conducted by GBAO Strategies.
The poll’s numbers are heavily tilted, with 31 percent of respondents having no denomination and 37 percent being Reform.
GBAO Strategies is a favorite pollster for assorted lefty advocacy groups, including the anti-Israel J Street. Along with the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and a raft of others.
It was bad enough when the media touted numbers from a Democrat firm and a Democrat pollster touting Jewish support for Biden. But GBAO Strategies was the source for controversial J Street polls. Using it to tout anti-Israel poll numbers would require at least a little background.
Last year, J Street was touting GBAO garbage election polls claiming that Biden would win massive Jewish support, 77 percent to 21 percent for Trump.
It also claimed a massive 73-22 percent tilt in Florida. The actual split was in the 40-50 percent range.
So GBAO has a history of garbage partisan lefty polls when it comes to American Jews. Good thing that the JTA and the media don’t bother reporting that when touting its latest garbage poll claiming that Jews hate Israel.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.
This article was first published by FrontPage Magazine.
