JACKSON, NJ-Jackson Township Republicans have been under fire over alleged anti-Semitic actions against the town’s growing Orthodox Jewish population in recent months, including receiving condemnation from National GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and New Jersey State GOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt.
GOP leaders condemned comments posted on Facebook by party leaders Clara Glory and Todd Porter and a wider scope of actions by other party leaders in the town over the past three years. Some of those claims include elected officials spying on Jewish homeowners holding in-home prayer services, code enforcement officers issuing summonses to Jewish homeowners and a pattern of creating ordinances intended to counter the Jewish growth in the town.
This week a large phone-based survey was conducted by an unknown entity. Speculations of who took the poll range from Democrats seeking to capitalize on a very important 2020 election to members of the Orthodox Jewish community themselves.
Today, we asked Adam Geller, CEO of National Research, Inc., one of the nation’s top GOP party pollsters his thoughts on the poll.
Geller said the poll is what the industry defines as “message testing”.
“Message testing is done ahead of some impending action or bigger messaging campaign,” Geller said. “It means there’s a bunch of stuff coming in the future and right now they are seeing how to use that data in those message messages in the context of a much larger campaign.”
Geller said his firm did not operate the poll.
“We don’t get involved in polls like that,” Geller said. “Our polls are usually 300 to 400 people in our sample size normally.”
It’s estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 residents were polled and Geller said that could just mean the start of something bigger.
“It’s usually a precursor to a lot messages being put out there in the near future,” he said. “You could see commercials, media ads, newspaper ads.”
We reached out today a local official in the Democrat party to inquire if the poll was operated by their political operatives.
“We have no comment on this poll,” the operative, who wishes to remain anonymous said.
Geller said whoever ran the poll in Jackson apparently has financial and political backing.
“When that many people get contacted by a poll and testing messages they are well funded,” Geller said. “When it reaches this many people, it could mean it transcends party politics.”
