The Jewish vote: 5 types

[ag]

It is of interest how little electoral success the Republican Jewish groups can boast these days Back in the day when "right-wing" among the Jews in NYC meant "Sociallist" - to distinguish from the proper "left-wing" Communist, you, actually, had elected Republican Jewish politicians.  These days, aside from a lonely freshman Republican congresseman from Long Island, is there anybody there at all?

[ag]

Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and their ilk are a major turnoff for Jews.   They won't vote Republican no matter how pro-Israel they are. 

Well, there are quite a few who do. You can find a Jewish Republican voter. The question is: where are Jewish Republican politicians.

[ag]

Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and their ilk are a major turnoff for Jews.   They won't vote Republican no matter how pro-Israel they are. 

And, if anything, Sarachkah Palin turns on elderly Russian Jews. They cannot understand what she is saying, anyway.

[ag]

Well, there are quite a few who do. You can find a Jewish Republican voter. The question is: where are Jewish Republican politicians.

Obviously yes - religious and immigrant Jews. But the religious right and populist demagogues have made the GOP unappealing to moderate Jews from 1992 on.   In 1980 Reagan got about 40% of the Jewish vote.  A conservative Party of the British, Canadian or Australian Liberal type party (particularly not with a Tony Abbott type at the helm) would be more competitive with US Jews (the Southern and Midwestern Jews would probably fit in this category, and suburban voters generally).

I'm Canadian and I don't think we have an equivalent to "Southern and Midwestern Jews" but we certainly have the other four.  My own background is a mix of "red diaper" and "urban elite."

Well, we´ve had this discussion many times before here. There was a poster some time ago who tried to demonstrate that the religious and the Russians are now in majority, which is, obviously, bullocks. But neither should we forget about them, and they ARE growing as a proportion of the Jewish population in the US.

In any case, Jews have been a majority Dem electorate since times immemorial. There is no puzzle there to resolve. If anything, the roughly 30% of the Jewish vote Romney got is high by historic standards (Bush Jr. was around 20% in 2000) and is not that far below the Reagan number you cite (remember, Reagan won that election, while Romney lost - so, relative to the society at large the difference is even smaller).

The real puzzle is the lack of prominent Republican Jewish politicians. For all its "Israel-friendliness", the Republican party has had real trouble electing Jewish politicians recently (a couple of generations ago, even with much more leftist Jewish mainstream, it seems to have had no such trouble). They did, briefly, have a prominent Jewish congressman (Cantor), but he lost in a primary. If not for the luck of Lee Zeldin winning in NY-1 in November, there would have been exactly zero Jewish Republicans in Congress (there are around 30 Democrats). 30% of the Jews voted Republican in 2012 - and they are represented by a single freshman member of the House. Hell, Jewish (small-s) sociallists are doing better - they have a fairly senior and well-established Sen. Sanders, and he is a lot safer as I-VT than any R-NY, still more R-LI will ever be.

[ag]

In local politics, the Orthodox and Hasidim are still willing to vote for Democrats, which may explain why there isn't really much of a base for Jewish GOPers. Borough Park is represented by a ConservaDem, IIRC.

Interestingly enough, it is not only the Orthodox Jews that are locally represented by the Dems (Dov Hikind, of course, is your guy). The only Russian in NY legislature is Alec Brook Krasny, and he is a Dem as well. One would think that Republicans would find a guy to run from Brighton Beach, for god's sake! But, you know what: the state Senate, which they gerrymandered, they gerrymandered to split the Russian vote. They may have got a senator out of that, but he ain't any immigrant Jew. So, Brighton Beach Russians only get Mr. Brook Krasny: a Dem, and also one originally from Moscow (not at all the origin of most of the Brighton Beach folk).