American Jews put ideology first at the polls
The election results underscore that U.S. Jews are, on average, much further to the left than other Americans.
By Kenin M. Spivak
JNS
Nov 19, 2024
During her campaign Harris said “What has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that … the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is highly skeptical of Israel’s conduct and deeply sympathetic to Palestinian goals, going so far as to tell people at one of her rallies that “What he’s talking about, it’s real” when a protestor accused Israel of genocide. Unlike her recent predecessors, she has not visited Israel while serving as vice president.
To left-leaning Jews, Harris is unfathomably seen as a strong ally of Israel. These supporters cite trivial acts such as Harris’s support in 2019 of a unanimous U.S. Senate resolution condemning antisemitism and her endorsement of the Biden-Harris administration’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. That substance-free, 59-page plan has done nothing to quell the largest wave of antisemitism in American history. Harris’s supporters also claim that her far-left policies are good for everyone, thereby constituting support for Jews and Israel.
Her supporters cited her initial statement about Israel in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer as proof of her support. As she said at the time, “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.” That statement was also included in advertising that her campaign ran in Jewish areas.
Her campaign then used the remainder of that statement in advertising to Arab communities. “At the same time,” Harris said, “what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that … the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
Harris selected advisers who opposed Israel’s Gaza operations, held Israel responsible for “too many” Palestinian deaths, criticized Israel’s Rafah operation, and boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. She refused to be “silent” about Palestinian suffering, saying “Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters. … What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating.”
At least from the time that Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for president in 1932, the American Jewish community has overwhelmingly aligned with Democrats’s left-of-center philosophies. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, since 1948, on average, about 70% of Jewish votes were cast for the Democrat presidential nominee and 25% for the Republican nominee. Despite waning Democrat support for Israel during the Obama administration, in 2016, Donald Trump received only 24% of Jewish votes.
Once elected, Trump racked up a strong record supporting Israel, including the Abraham Accords, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and a warm relationship with Netanyahu. As a result, in 2020, Trump’s Jewish vote increased to about 30%.
Seeking to capitalize on Trump’s strong support for Israel and Harris’s tilt toward Palestinians, in the run-up to the 2024 election, the Republican Jewish Coalition launched the biggest media campaign in its history, achieving notable successes in New York, Florida and swing states. According to exit polls, Trump secured 46% of the Jewish vote in New York, 44% in Florida, 42% in Nevada, 41% in Pennsylvania, and 38% in Arizona. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s Jewish vote was about 75% of his total margin over Harris. In New York, the shift likely reflected strong support for Trump among Orthodox Jews. In Florida, there is a general trend to the right among voters.
However, exit polls show a different story in many other states. According to Fox’s highly respected exit poll, nationally, Trump’s overall Jewish vote, inclusive of the states above, increased by just 2% to about 32%. According to Edison Research, which does extensive exit polling for most networks and other media, Trump received only 22% of the Jewish vote. Based on a much smaller sample, left-leaning J Street concluded that Harris won 71% of the vote, to 26% for Trump. The data shows that Jews were among the most loyal Democrats in this election, with little slippage compared to prior years. Given the increased Jewish vote for Trump in some states, it means that he lost support in other states, including California; yet, overall, Trump improved his performance in California in 2024 compared to 2020.
By contrast to U.S. results, two-thirds of Israelis favored Trump, with just 17% supporting Harris and 17% undecided.
While many American Jews do not rank Israel as a top issue, undoubtedly, more than 22% to 32% do, still, Jews remain key leaders and supporters of the far-left, progressive movement, apparently undaunted by its virulent antisemitic and anti-Israel beliefs.
The majority of Americans of most ethnicities, most men and almost half of all women voted for Trump, a far superior performance as compared to 2020 and 2016. Yet despite the Democrats’s declining support for Israel, weak opposition to antisemitism and radical far-left agenda, two-thirds to three-fifths of Jews continued to support the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate.
Polls show that the United States remains a center-right country. Harris lied about and hid her traditional positions because of this. The election results underscore that U.S. Jews are, on average, much further to the left than other Americans. In swing states, where their votes could affect the election, Jews were open to considering a Republican. But looking at national numbers, if the stark differences between Trump’s and Harris’s views of Israel and the antisemitism sweeping through the progressive movement are insufficient to motivate more Jewish voters to reconsider the Democratic Party, then it is unclear what would or could do so.
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