Democratic and Republican-aligned groups offered conflicting analysis and spin Wednesday to describe how a newly re-elected President Obama fared among the Jewish American electorate in Tuesday’s polls, after a year in which tens of millions of dollars were spent in Republican ad campaigns depicting Obama as having "thrown [Israel] under the bus," as Mitt Romney put it in September. 

Nationwide, Jewish voters went for Obama 70% to 30% for Romney in the 2012 presidential race, according to a survey of 800 Jewish American voters conducted by Gerstein Bacion Agne Strategies for left-leaning J Street. That compared with 74% of the Jewish vote going for Obama in his 2008 race against Republican John McCain. Obama fared similarly among Jewish voters in two key swing states: Florida, where Obama this year won 68% of the Jewish vote, and Ohio (69%), according to the J Street/GBA poll.

The key takeaway, according to pollster Jim Gerstein, is that the 4% drop in the Jewish vote for Obama in the 2012 versus 2008 race is consistent with the modest percentage drop Obama experienced with several other constituencies — including college graduates, whites, independents, voters under 30 and Catholics.

Furthermore, the reason for the drop has little if anything to do with Obama’s handling of Israel or well financed campaigns by Republican Jewish groups to portray Obama as too tough on Israel, Gerstein contends.