Did Israel determine the US presidential election?
Well it depends who and where you ask...
Did Harris lose to Trump over the Jewish vote?
By Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS
Introduction
On the morning of Election Day in the United States, there was a passionate conversation filled with real concern about the outcome of the presidential election — was it in a battleground state? The conversation took place in a Jerusalem pharmacy located in the heart of the German Colony, an area known for its high concentration of American expats. The workers, conversing with customers in Hebrew, expressed concern about remarks made by former President Barack Obama during a rally in Michigan, which appeared to appeal to Arab voters. In Israel, the majority of Jews desired the return of former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House; he was undoubtedly Israel’s closest ally, having relocated the embassy to Jerusalem and acknowledged the Golan Heights as part of Israel. But what matters most to American Jews? Did the rising anti-Semitism, a direct backlash of the October 7, 2023, attacks, the subsequent and ongoing war in Gaza, which has now spread to Lebanon, and the serious game of cat and mouse with Iran influence American Jews’ voting decisions?
Kamala Harris, the Democratic Presidential Candidate and current Vice President, faced criticism throughout her campaign to replace President Joe Biden, who withdrew in July due to a poor performance in his debate with Trump, which led many to question his mental acuity. Biden, a self-declared Zionist, has always been regarded as the last pro-Israel Democratic president. Harris has straddled both worlds, satisfying the Jewish voters, the administration policy, and Arab American voters, with empathy towards Gazans as well as Israelis. Her campaign strategy regarding the Middle East has been characterized by dual loyalties, potentially contributing to her loss in the election. However, in catering to the Arab American voters, did she sacrifice the usually reliable Jewish Democratic vote? Joel Mathis posed a question in the Week last month, stating that Kamala Harris treads carefully when it comes to Israel and Gaza. She’s committed to Israel’s defense and ending Palestinian suffering. Are both possible?” Apparently not; Harris lost the election to Trump, who won all the swing states, including the must-win. The Jewish vote in Pennsylvania played a crucial role, as did the Arab vote in Michigan. Trump won a total of 312 electoral college votes and the popular vote.
The 2024 Jewish Vote
For over a hundred years, Jewish American voters have consistently supported Democratic presidential nominees. There have been occasions when Jewish American voters have swayed and supported the Republican nominee in larger numbers, but this has not occurred often. In each cycle, nominees reach out to the small segment but are influential in votes, swing states, and donations. However, since the war in Gaza has affected a larger segment of the population, particularly in key swing states, both nominees have been actively courting Arab voters, particularly in Michigan, a crucial state in the election. It turns out both Pennsylvania and Michigan ended up handing the president to Trump, giving the electoral college votes to put him over the 270 threshold. Jewish voters, while constituting a modest segment of the electorate, possess the potential to wield considerable influence in the forthcoming high-stakes election. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have dedicated considerable effort and resources to engage with Jewish voters in pivotal states. The results of lower-tier elections may also influence the situation in Israel and the broader Middle East conflict.
According to exit polls for the 2024 election, a majority of Jewish voters voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. NBC News reported that 78% of Jewish Americans voted for Harris, while 22% voted for President-elect Donald Trump. A Fox News/Associated Press exit poll found a smaller majority of Jews, 66%, voted for Harris, while 32% voted for Trump. This is consistent with previous elections where Jews, a traditionally Democratic demographic, broke along similar margins. In 2020, 69% of Jews voted for Joe Biden, and 30% voted for Trump. In 2016, 71% of Jews supported Hillary Clinton, while 24% supported Trump. Despite overtures from both Trump and Harris campaigns, there was not a significant change among Jewish voters this year. Trump touted himself as a key ally of Jews and Israel, and he has said that Jews who support Democrats should have their head examined. The Republican Jewish Coalition aired a commercial in swing states featuring Jewish women discussing voting for Trump. The Harris campaign also targeted Jewish voters, with ads in Pennsylvania highlighting her commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself.
The Forward reported a recent exit poll indicated that 79% of Jewish voters supported Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, while 21% reported casting their votes for Republican Donald Trump. A consortium of national media outlets conducted the poll, and it may evolve as additional responses come in. If the current division persists, it would signify yet another electoral period where Republican assertions that Jewish voters would rally behind their candidate due to Israel or antisemitism failed to materialize.
Edison Research, responsible for conducting the poll on behalf of the consortium, gathered insights from voters across 10 states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Results released Tuesday night and Wednesday morning did not provide a breakdown of responses by religion in individual states such as Pennsylvania or Michigan, critical battlegrounds where both campaigns had made significant efforts to engage Jewish voters. Some individuals had indicated to pollsters that they were contemplating a party switch to support Trump. According to a distinct exit poll carried out by Fox News, 67% of Jewish voters cast their ballots for Harris, while 31% opted for Trump.
The poll concerning Israel came following over a year of conflict in the Middle East, which has diminished its backing globally, particularly among left-leaning individuals in the United States. Conservative organizations exerted significant effort to attract more Jewish voters to Trump, with the Republican Jewish Coalition investing over $15 million in television ads supporting the former president. Trump and his supporters contended that he was a staunch ally of Israel and would adopt a more resolute position against the pro-Palestinian protests, which many in the Jewish community perceive as antisemitic.
The leftist organization J Street also conducted exit poll numbers. The CEO of J Street, Jeremy Ben Ami, revealed that a survey by the Jewish Congressional Research Association (GBAO) indicated the failure of the Republican Party’s extraordinary attempts to win over the Jewish electorate following the October 7 attacks. The recent survey by J Street revealed that Kamala Harris secured 71% of the Jewish vote compared to 26% for Trump in the 2024 election. This outcome mirrors the consistent support Jewish voters have historically extended to Democratic candidates for both President and Congress in the last ten years. Harris secured a decisive victory across nearly all demographics, with the exception of Orthodox Jews.
The United States used to boast the world’s largest Jewish population; however, in the last decade, Israel has eclipsed it. The US has 6.3 million Jews, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel’s latest tally in October 2024; in 2020, they represented 2.2 percent of the American population. As of 2022, Pennsylvania has the fifth largest Jewish population in the country behind New York State, 1,785,727; California, 1,234,540; Florida, 672,465, and New Jersey, 626,220; while Pennsylvania has 434,165 Jews.
Biden secured a similar percentage of Jewish voters in 2020. Two opposing Jewish groups on the opposite end of the political spectrum conducted polls. The Republican Jewish Coalition funded a poll that revealed 30.5% of Jewish voters nationwide favored Republican incumbent Donald Trump over Democratic rival Joe Biden. Simultaneously, a liberal group J Street-funded poll revealed that 77% of Jewish Americans favored Biden over Trump. Overall, both polls indicate that the majority of Jewish voters selected the Democratic candidate. Jewish voters did not prioritize foreign policy or Israel. This has always been the case in national elections. Both groups say that things have changed in the last four years, but it’s not clear which is true. The National Election Pool, a large group of media outlets that usually work together on exit polls, did not post Jewish data this year. The Associated Press used to be part of the group but left in 2018 to start Votecast. In 2020, the Votecast included a breakdown by ethnicity. It found that 68% of Jewish Americans were voting for Biden and 30% were voting for Trump. Votecast differs significantly from the National Election Pool exit polling system in several aspects, including the use of online groups and the occasional payment for participation.
Bonnie K. Goodman, BA, MLIS, is a historian, librarian, journalist, and artist. She is pursuing an MA in Jewish Education at the Melton Centre of Jewish Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of the recently released “On This Day in History…: Significant Events in the American Year,” and “A Constant Battle: McGill University’s Complicated History of Antisemitism and Now anti-Zionism.” She has a BA in History and Art History and a Masters in Library and Information Studies from McGill University. She has done graduate work in Jewish history at Concordia University as part of the MA in Judaic Studies, where she focused on Medieval and Modern Judaism. Her research area is North American Jewish history, and her thesis was entitled “Unconditional Loyalty to the Cause: Southern Whiteness, Jewish Women, and Antisemitism, 1860–1913.” Ms. Goodman has been researching and writing about antisemitism in North American Jewish History, and she has reported on the current antisemitic climate and anti-Zionism on campus for over fifteen years.
She is also the author of among others, “Silver Boom! The Rise and Decline of Leadville, Colorado as the United States Silver Capital, 1860–1896” (2008), “On This Day in the History… Of American Independence Significant Events in the Revolutionary Era, 1754–1812” (2020), and “We Used to be Friends? The Long Complicated History of Jews, Blacks, and Antisemitism” (2020). She contributed the overviews and chronologies to the “History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2008,” edited by Gil Troy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, and Fred L. Israel (2012). She is the former Features Editor at the History News Network and reporter at Examiner.com, where she covered politics, universities, religion, and news. She currently blogs at Medium, where she was a top writer in history, and regularly writes an “On This Day in History (#OTD in #History)” Feature. Her scholarly articles can be found on Academia.edu/.
