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January 2012 | Tevet 5772

A JOURNAL OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY

The Jewish Electorate: 2012

Kenneth D. Wald

Stunning Stability:

A Consistent Jewish Vote for 60 Years . . . . . . 1 Discussion Guide. . . . . . 2

Jonathan D. Sarna

The Jewish Vote in Presidential Elections. . . 3

Mik Moore

Jewish Issues,

Jewish Votes. . . . . . . . . 4

ever in recent memory has Israel — or Jews in general — loomed so large on the
national political scene. As the essays in this issue observe, the reasons for this
attention can’t be demographic — at about 2 percent of the population, our votes
aren’t significant; and despite the disproportionate financial support provided by Jews for
political causes, neither is our money. Part of the reason, as this issue explores, is the
perceived distance in some quarters between the Obama administration and Israel, coupled
with the rise of a sabre-rattling, nuclear agile Iran, which some feel presents Israel with an
existential threat. But as our writers note, this is far from the only reason. Our Roundtable and
“letter exchange” explore whether Jews vote as a block, and how that may be changing in this
election cycle. Several writers examine the determining features of Jewish
voting patterns, historically and regionally. Several contributions return
to the question: To what degree does Israel, as a singular issue,
really move Jewish voters? This expanded issue of Sh’ma takes
a careful look at these questions as we hurtle toward 2012.

Russ Feingold

Corruption in the Political System .............5

—Susan Berrin, Editor-in-Chief

Steven Windmueller & Howard I. Friedman

One Voice or Many? An Exchange of Letters . . . . 6

Stunning Stability:

Larry Greenfield, Peter A. Joseph, Raphael Sonenshein, Judith L. Lichtman

A Consistent Jewish Vote for 60 Years

KENNETH D. WALD

Where Jews Stand:

A Roundtable . . . . . . . . 9

by small margins.

Mark Silk

Religion Matters, Regionally. . . . . . . . . . 12

Gary L. Greenberg

The Tea Party and I: Confessions of a ‘Conservative’ . . . . . . . 14

Rob Eshman

Winning the Hearts of L.A. Jewry. . . . . . . . 16

Betsy R. Sheerr

The View from Pennsylvania: A Cloudy Crystal Ball . . . . . . . . . 17

In 1948, two social scientists published the first scholarly study of religious group voting patterns in the United States. According to the authors, Catholics, Jews, and Baptists were Democratic by margins of two to one or better. Five denominations that we would classify as mainline Protestants were Republican by equally lopsided ratios. Although the authors did not report on black Protestants, most of whom were still forbidden to vote by Jim Crow laws, data collected at the time showed African-Americans evenly split in loyalty between the two parties.

Every group has changed but one. In 1948, in a close presidential election won by Harry S. Truman, the Democratic nominee, Jews gave around 90 percent of their vote to Truman. In the close election of 2008, also won by the Democrats, Barack Obama received around 80 percent of the votes cast by self-identified Jews. Given the extraordinary political changes over the intervening 60 years, the stability of Jewish political loyalties — both in absolute and comparative terms — is stunning.

Michael M. Adler

In Florida ..........18

Aaron Strauss

Trends Among Young Jewish Voters. . . . . . . . 19

Ami Fields-Meyer

The Force of Apathy:

A Young Voice on Jewish Politics ............20

Joel Alter, Jaime Rapaport Barry, Sarah Drew Kornhauser, Marc R. Stanley

NiSh’ma . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Rachel Meytin

Sh’ma Ethics . . . . . . . . 24

Sixty years later, the exit polls from 2008 show that almost nothing is the same. Baptists have swung across the spectrum; they and their fellow Evangelical Protestants now constitute the single most pro-Republican religious bloc. Catholics and African-Americans have traded places, the former now divided almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans and the latter overwhelmingly favoring Democratic candidates. Once the core of the Republican vote, the shrinking body of mainline Protestants increasingly sits out elections or, while still identifying as Republican, tends to favor Democrats

Jews are not politically unchanged since the mid-20th century. Careful scholarship has revealed some erosion in self-reported Democratic partisanship, slippage in both issue-based and self-identified ideological liberalism, and the growth of Republicanism among most Orthodox Jews in the community. Yet these are small changes compared to the wholesale realignments evident among other religious groups. Notwithstanding these shifts, Jews remain well to the left politically of those non-Jews whom they most resemble in socioeconomic status.