Mitchell Bard is a foreign-policy analyst and an authority on U.S.-Israel relations who has written and edited 22 books, including The Arab Lobby, Death to the Infidels: Radical Islam’s War Against the Jews and After Anatevka: Tevye in Palestine.
(JNS) In a close election, every constituency is thought to hold the potential to tip the balance. Jewish voters, like others, were believed to impact the outcome, but the race wasn’t even close. Donald Trump won decisively, with the Democratic “blue wall” collapsing and Trump overperforming in nearly every county in the country, while Vice President Kamala Harris underperformed.
Some media outlets published a National Election Pool exit poll reporting that the Jewish vote broke 79% to 21% for Harris. Don’t believe it. That was based on 10 states and contradicts pre-election projections that showed Harris leading on average 65% to 30%. The Fox News exit poll is more likely to be accurate as it was consistent with these earlier polls reporting Harris winning Jewish votes 65% to 32%.
This would be the lowest share of the Jewish vote since Michael Dukakis in 1988. No Democrat was elected president with less than 68% (Joe Biden’s total) since 1968. Unlike overly optimistic predictions by Republicans that Trump had won over significant numbers of Jews, the Jewish vote did not impact the outcome.
Years will be spent analyzing the election but several reasons for Harris’s loss can easily be discerned.
Many Jewish voters who had previously downplayed Israel’s importance in their decision-making likely voted with that issue in mind. They abandoned Harris because she was tied to Biden’s good cop, bad cop approach to Israel that has both aided and impeded its war effort. She was also undermined by the association with groups pushing her to weaken the U.S.-Israel alliance: J Street, the far-left, antisemites, Israel critics and proponents of cutting aid to Israel.
Harris didn’t help herself with her unwillingness to define her Middle East policy beyond supporting the phantasmagorical two-state solution and acknowledging that she “heard” protesters accusing Israel of genocide. A California liberal, Harris could not bring herself to tack to the center and failed to articulate a coherent, forceful Middle East policy.
Arab Americans were rejoicing, believing they had helped defeat her in Michigan for what they considered her pro-Israel policies - that were anathema to many Jews. In Dearborn, the city with the most Arab Americans, Trump won 47% to 28%, with 22% voting for Jill Stein (final results may vary). In 2020, Biden won 69% to 30%. This group will undoubtedly regret their virtue-signaling when they see Trump dismissing their concerns.
The party and Harris also suffered because of Biden’s refusal to withdraw from the race until almost the 11th hour. Had he left earlier, the Democrats could have had a competition for the nomination. He also might have resigned to allow Harris to become president and run as the incumbent.
Few people are talking about it, but Harris lost because Democrats are seen as placing identity politics over policy.
She was chosen as the candidate without receiving a single vote largely because the party feared that it would implode if a woman of color were denied the nomination. Her run for the presidency in 2020 had shown her to be unpopular, but most Democrats were so happy to replace Biden that they overlooked her flaws. The “joy” campaign quickly faded as the relief over dumping Biden subsided.
Paradoxically, Harris played the identity politics card and lost a significant share of key Democratic constituencies, notably black men and Hispanics.
Despite Biden’s overwhelming unpopularity and a sense among the public that the country was heading in the wrong direction, Harris failed to offer any substantive vision of her own. Instead, she doubled down on Biden’s policies, refusing to distance herself even from the most unpopular ones. Remember James Carville’s mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Her failure to adequately address “kitchen table” issues put her out of step with millions of Americans.
Trump’s attacks on Harris as the “immigration czar” responsible for the nation’s border crisis were also effective, as he blamed her for the country being overrun by foreigners “poisoning the blood of our country.” Biden had put her in charge of the issue and she failed.
A non-issue in 2020, Harris’s support for trans rights became a Republican line of attack that seemed to resonate with some religious voters but not only them, including Jews and parents.
The so-called “bro” factor led to Trump erasing Harris’s gender-gap advantage with women. Perhaps many bros were not even prepared in 2024 to accept a female president.
Democrats talked about Harris being in the room with the president when he made all his foreign-policy decisions to suggest that she was ready to be commander-in-chief. However, evidence was never presented to substantiate her influence on Middle East policy, and that allowed Republicans to blame her for Biden’s perceived shortcomings in support for Israel, positioning her as a scapegoat amid increasing tensions.
Harris and her party underestimated the depth of Trump’s acceptance (he won the popular vote for the first time). It was unfathomable to many who saw Trump as a vulgar felon, adulterer and wannabe dictator who could be re-elected.
Biden’s remark about his supporters being “garbage” reinforced the view of at least half the population that they were being dismissed and derided by elites who did not relate to their everyday challenges.
Even issues like abortion, which were supposed to serve as a rallying cry for women voters, failed to deliver the expected gender-gap advantage. Although abortion rights energized many voters, it also alienated others, especially religious voters, including Jewish and Catholic communities.
Despite a well-funded campaign designed to emphasize women’s rights, Harris ultimately garnered fewer votes from women than Biden had in 2020, while male voters shifted even further away from her.