Jews and Democrats

I hope we will know who our next president is by the time you read this column. But because I wrote this on Monday, the day before voting concluded, there was no way to predict whether the results will be finalized on Tuesday night – or whether we will be forced to wait days or even weeks before we know the final outcome.

We also won’t know precisely how the Jewish community voted until the first post-election exit polls are released, although most pre-election surveys suggest a small movement this year toward Trump and other Republican candidates. While likely falling far short of the massive shift that Trump has predicted, it does appear that discomfort among a small number of Jewish voters toward progressive Democrats’ anti-Israel sentiments has cost Harris some level of support.

These changes, coupled with larger shifts among Arab-American voters to Trump because of that community’s unhappiness with the Biden Administration’s approach to the Middle East, may have made the key swing state of Michigan a more difficult challenge for Democrats. But barring a realignment of unexpected proportions, it should be safe to say that the Gaza war has not changed the fact that large majorities of American Jews will continue to remain loyal Democrats.

Barring a realignment of unexpected proportions, it should be safe to say that the Gaza war has not changed the fact that large majorities of American Jews will continue to remain loyal Democrats. 

Which makes this a useful opportunity for us to revisit the long-standing question of why the Jewish community leans so reliably leftward. Now that many Latino voters have begun to reexamine their long-standing Democratic ties, American Jews are the only ethnic group in American politics that seems to have resisted the trajectory that immigrants have generally followed after coming to this country. This discussion is a familiar one: As far back as the Irish and Italian immigrants who arrived here in the 18th and 19th centuries, most of those who came to the U.S. over our history gravitated toward crowded urban neighborhoods which they shared with others from their home countries.

For most of that time, Democrats have dominated the political machines in these coastal big cities, partly by providing services and support for the economically disadvantaged. Waves of immigrants from Southern and later Eastern Europe, and more recently from Latin America and Asia, benefited from this assistance, and their communities began their participation in the American political system as consistent Democratic voters.

But as these immigrants settled and became more economically successful, they often moved away from the urban cores to more comfortable and spacious suburban settings. As their personal financial situations improved, many began to realign politically as well. As a result, the children and grandchildren of these early arrivals became more likely to vote Republican. The two exceptions to these trends had always been Jewish and Latino voters, both of whom remained Democrats in large numbers even while ascending the economic ladder. Until now.

This Jewish “exception” has frustrated Republicans for decades, and their exasperation has grown as the two parties’ constituencies have adopted increasingly different feelings about Israel. But Jewish voters have made it clear to pollsters for many years that Israel has not been as high a priority for them as domestic social and cultural issues, such as abortion rights and anti-poverty programs. Whether these preferences are a result of the Jewish people’s history as targets of discrimination and oppression, because of cultural discomfort with the religious conservatism that dominates today’s GOP, or perhaps for other reasons, I will defer to those wiser than me. But the end result is a demographic group that is unique in its approach to American politics.

These decisions have become even more difficult over the last 13 months. The Gaza war has demonstrated the rising strength of anti-Israel progressives in the Democratic Party. We’ve also seen a continued expansion of the nativist ugliness on the far right that has become more unavoidable both in discussions of foreign policy and our daily lives. The most unyielding partisan zealots on both sides work mightily to pretend that their party is entirely blameless. The rest of us know better, and we will continue to grudgingly accept the imperfect alternatives available to us.

Dan Schnur is the U.S. Politics Editor for the Jewish Journal. He teaches courses in politics, communications, and leadership at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. He hosts the monthly webinar “The Dan Schnur Political Report” for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall. Follow Dan’s work at www.danschnurpolitics.com.