CNN data guru Harry Enten broke down the latest polling in the Democratic Party on views toward Israel and the Palestinians on Wednesday and marveled at the massive shift in attitudes, declaring he’s “rarely” seen anything like it in his many years of looking at polling data.
Enten spoke to anchor Kate Bolduan in the context of Zohran Mamdani’s sweeping victory over ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic Party mayoral primary last week.
“What are we talking about here? All right, who do Democrats sympathize more with: Israelis or Palestinians? In 2017, the Democratic Party was a pro-Israeli party. Look at this. They sympathized with the Israelis by 13 points—more with the Israelis than the Palestinians. But look at this sea change. Now, Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians by 43 points.Oh my God! That is a change in the margin of 56 points over the course of just eight years. So all of a sudden, it’s the pro-Palestinian position that actually reigns supreme in Democratic politics, not the Israeli position. And that is part of the reason why Mamdani was able to do so well in this primary, because those attacks over Israel, simply put, did not ring true for Democrats”
What a point even mean in this context? Why not giving percentage of who sympatisze with palestinians
percentage points. So additive math, compared to regular percents, which are multiplicative.
+14 pts israel means 57% in favor of israel vs 43% in favor of palestine (assuming you can’t give other answers) That’s the same thing as 33% more people in favor of israel.
+57 pts palestine means 78.5% in favor of palestine and 21.5% in favor of israel. That’s the same thing as 265% more people in favor of palestine.
A ‘point’ is 1 person in 100. When they say that people sympathized with Israel ‘by 13 points’, they mean that 44% of people favored Palestine and 56% favored Israel. Why not just say “13 percent” then? Because 56/44 = 127%. 27% more people sympathize with Israel when their net support is 13 points.
When the margin is 43 points, it means 29-71 (minus undecideds). 71/29 = 245%, and I guarantee you will break people’s brains if you tell them that 145% more people sympathize with Palestine than Israel.