A woman receives a sticker at the Jewish Quit Voting Center opened by Pennsylvania Unites in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, on September 17. Photo: Rachel Wisniewski/For the Washington Post/Getty Images

Columnist
Dan Perry
31 October 2024

Another quirk of the US’s strange election system is that votes cast in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 6,000 miles from Israel, have a far greater impact on the outcome of next week’s presidential race than the votes of my friends in New York. York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami.

So: Even if it’s just a little bit. Because in a year when the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war threatens to upend ordinary election arithmetic, Pennsylvania Jewish voters like me have a real chance to decide whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump will be in the White House.

Keystone State Just under half a million JewsIt’s significantly less than New York and California, and slightly less than the figures in Florida and New Jersey. But it is the only state with a significant Jewish population that is also a battleground state, and in America’s peculiar electoral system, voters elsewhere are of no consequence.

So if Trump can get, say, 30,000 more Jewish votes in Pennsylvania than he did in the last two elections, he’ll be a long way toward getting the 19 electoral votes the state needs to win. The margin of victory in recent presidential races in Pennsylvania has been nail-bitingly close: nearly 80,000 votes for Joe Biden in 2020 and nearly 44,000 votes for Trump in 2016. Even a statistically small change in the Jewish vote in Pennsylvania could tip the scales. Part of a broader erosion of Democratic support among other groups Latinos And black men.

Jewish support for Democrats has already declined over the past decade, and there is reason to think it will accelerate further this year. US Jews historically Supported Democrats overwhelmingly: Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Barack Obama won nearly 80% of Jewish voters in their first campaigns. However, since 2008 this figure has fallen to around 70%, and there are some assessments based in part on the data. Change in donations, especially from mega donors – this time it will fall even further.

There are basically two reasons for this.

First, there is a prevailing (albeit simplistic) perception that Trump is more pro-Israel, and this could galvanize voters at a time when the Jewish state is particularly under pressure due to criticism of its conduct during last year’s multi-front war – especially in which tens of thousands of people died In Gaza. While President Joe Biden’s administration has provided significant material and political support to Israel’s war effort, it has also been at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for months over a lack of a strategic vision for peace, creating an atmosphere of tension that has rubbed off on Harris.

Second, there is a perception that concerns about antisemitism, which have generally favored liberal parties in the United States and elsewhere, are now favoring the right. This is not because the far right has become less antisemitic, but rather because there is a growing sense that the progressive movement, which focused much of its energy last year on loudly protesting Israel’s war, is hostile to Jews.

The tensions around this issue, particularly regarding progressive antisemitism and its variants, are enormous.

There is a perception among some Jews that progressive ideology, focused on privilege and systemic inequalities, often leaves Jews out of the conversation, even portraying them in a negative light. This sentiment grew amid the war, as progressive rhetoric conflating Jewish identity with wealth and privilege—a framework that some see as unfair and even antisemitic—became more prevalent, especially on elite U.S. campuses, as did pro-Palestinian protests. some cases went to the extreme of openly supporting Hamas jihadist terrorists.

Perhaps the poster child for this concern is in Pennsylvania: the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania.

When I attended the school in the mid-1980s, more than a third of its students were Jewish. This rate destroyedand these days Israeli students are very rarely accepted; Alumni board in Israel of which I am a member His relationship with the university was terminated.Because of UPenn’s failure to address antisemitism primarily, though not exclusively, after October 7th. Over the past year, UPenn’s failure to stem the tide of antisemitism on its campus has repeatedly made national headlines, and growing tensions between progressives and liberal Jews have become one of the top issues. National stories in a year when Pennsylvania’s volatile state status could be particularly important.

These tensions increased at least some Jewish voters need to reconsider their traditional alignment with the Democratic Party. But one thing in Harris’ favor is that the proportion of Pennsylvania Jews who are Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox is quite low, and it is these groups that are most likely to agree decisively with Trump.

Majorities of Jewish Americans prioritize liberal domestic issues like health care, social equality and climate change, which favor Democrats. As for the polarizing Trump, despite his strong support for Israel — or at least Israel’s right-wing leadership — his history on issues like antisemitism within his own ranks and his incendiary rhetoric may deter some Jewish voters.

Interestingly, Harris is facing a reversal of the Pennsylvania issue in the battleground state of Michigan, where Muslim voters are angered by what they see as the Biden administration’s excessive support for Israel.

The loss of both of these states, one critical of Jews and the other of Muslim states, would almost certainly mean Trump returning to the White House.

There are two ironies here. First, the electoral system that kept most Jewish votes on the sidelines (which are reliably concentrated in blue or red states) may now be tied to a swing state in which they could be the deciding factor. The second is more brutal: A small Jewish shift in Trump’s direction in the most critical swing states could leave the White House in the hands of a crude bigot who shares nothing with the Jewish traditions of scholarship, introspection and honesty.