We’ve probably all heard former President Donald Trump’s comments about Jewish Democrats. The Republican presidential candidate said if he doesn’t win in November, “the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that.” But does this statement hold any value? Can Jewish Americans decide the upcoming election?
While the United States has seen an increase in its Jewish population — there are an estimated 7.5 million Jewish Americans, according to a Sept. 27 press release by the Jewish Electorate Institute — it matters where in the U.S. those Jewish Americans live.
“It’s especially poignant to know where there’s Jewish growth in the Jewish population in swing states and target districts, because that’s where the Jewish vote can really make the difference,” a spokesperson for JEI told the Washington Jewish Week.
The four states with the highest Jewish populations — New York, New Jersey, California and Florida — make up 127 of the 240 electoral college votes needed to win the White House, according to a report by Reuters.
Due to Jewish Americans’ concentration in a few — coastal — states and their relative political homogeneity, the Jewish vote is an “important part of the electoral math,” a 2020 Brandeis University report said, especially in particularly competitive states or districts.
“Jews vote in disproportionate numbers to the general population,” the JEI spokesperson said. “So even though we’re only a couple percent of the [U.S.] population, we are three or four percent of the vote.”
Presidential Race
Trump has made it his goal to win over Jewish voters ahead of the presidential election, going so far as to claim that Vice President Kamala Harris “doesn’t like Jewish people.” Every vote counts, something we’ve seen in the 2020 presidential election, especially in a select few states.
“Jews could easily make the difference in a tight race,” the JEI spokesperson said. “Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by only 80,000 votes out of seven million cast four years ago. These [150,000 Jewish] voters [in Maryland] could clearly make the difference. The same in Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina; these are all presidential swing states, all with substantial Jewish populations.”
He added that even North Carolina, which has a smaller concentrated Jewish population at 100,000, will likely see about 40,000 or 50,000 Jewish voters on election day: “In a tight election between Trump and Harris, even that’s enough to make the difference.”
An estimated two-thirds of Jewish voters support Harris, a Pew Research Center poll revealed in September. In 2020, AP VoteCast found that seven out of 10 Jewish voters backed Biden.
The historical tendency to vote blue may shift for this upcoming election, as the Israel-Hamas war has caused many Jewish Americans to prioritize Israel’s survival and the domestic fight against antisemitism, according to the Associated Press. Some are “reluctantly voting for Trump” for foreign policy reasons, believing that he’ll be tougher on Iran than Harris will.
Dan Mitzner, the director of government affairs at Teach Coalition, a project of the Orthodox Union, said he sees this trend reflected both in recent polls and anecdotally.
“You’re seeing that there are voters who are now more open to the idea of Republicans than ever before,” Mitzner said. “I think there are long-standing traditions in communities who are entrenched in their thinking and are going to stick with the Democratic Party through. … But certainly, the feeling is in the air that there is more openness and willingness to vote, to lean Republican, or to have a little bit more of a sense of a [Republican] approach to politics in general.”
Harris is expected to receive less Jewish votes than any previous Democratic presidential candidate since the Reagan era, according to a Manhattan Institute poll conducted in early October.
The poll results found that Harris may lose Jewish votes due to her stances on security, Israel and antisemitism, whereas Trump has openly verbalized his support for Israel.
Issues pertinent to the Jewish American community include the “unfair media portrayal” of Israel, the U.S.’ failure to support Jewish-related organizations and support for legislatures banning face masks at protests amid pro-Palestinian demonstrations, according to The Jerusalem Post. That same article reports that for many Jewish Americans, concern about Israel will not necessarily impact their voting decision.
Mitzner said Jewish voting preferences tend to differ by denomination.
“The tendency towards more religious or affiliated communities to lean right is higher, but I do think that there is a general skew in the middle as well to start moving more to the center-right, as communities are seeing increases in crime and hate crimes and antisemitic incidents, but there’s still a very strong base of Jews that do vote Democrat as well,” Mitzner said.
He added that no Jewish community is a monolith, however, and it is impossible to know how anything plays out until November.
Maryland Senate Race
Jewish voters are expected to “substantially” influence the Maryland Senate election between Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and former Gov. Larry Hogan. The Old Line State is home to the fourth-largest percentage of Jewish Americans in the U.S., at approximately 240,100 Jews.
Nearly 1.8 million Jewish adults live in just 25 congressional districts, found in seven states including Maryland, according to the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
“Maryland has a very substantial Jewish population, and definitely enough to make a difference in the Senate race,” the JEI spokesperson said.
Of the more than 240,000 Jewish residents in Maryland, he estimated that about three-fourths are adults, and of that population, roughly 80 percent are registered to vote, and 80 percent of registered Jewish voters will turn out to vote: “That can add up to a very, very sizable population.”
According to the above calculation, Maryland can expect close to 115,250 Jewish voters to vote in the Senate election.
“Larry Hogan was more popular in the Jewish community than most Republicans or Republican governors in Maryland or elsewhere, but Alsobrooks is very popular, and it looks like the Jews are going to come home to the Democrats,” the JEI spokesperson said. “Jewish Democrats would argue that … [Alsobrooks is] going to carry the Jewish vote by a substantial number.”
Andrew Guckes contributed reporting to this article.
