Jewish voters play key role in NY House races, but number of Jewish members of Congress will drop
With Republican takeover of the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will likely be a leading opposition figure to second Trump administration
The U.S. Capitol on Jan. 30, 2024. Photo by Jacob Kornbluh
By Jacob Kornbluh November 6, 2024
Jewish voters played a key role in several New York races on Tuesday that could shape the balance of power in the House, while the Republican takeover of the Senate means that Chuck Schumer, the nation’s top Jewish elected official, will lose his role as majority leader and likely become a leader of the opposition to a second Trump presidency.
The overall number of Jews in the next Congress will drop to 34 from 35. At the same time, Jewish men won governors’ races in North Carolina and Delaware Tuesday, bringing the total number of Jewish state executives to six from four.
Hasidic voting bloc shows bipartisanship
In upstate New York, at least two incumbents — Republican Mike Lawler and Democrat Pat Ryan — held their seats with crucial support from Orthodox voters in their districts.
Lawler, who is 38 and has been a strong pro-Israel voice since his election in 2022, benefited from high turnout among the growing Hasidic population in Rockland County.
Ryan, a Democrat who is married to a Jewish woman, Rebecca Grusky, also leveraged a close relationship with the Hasidic sect of Satmar in the Orange County village of Kiryas Joel, which endorsed him despite supporting former President Donald Trump’s reelection.
The outcomes in both races reinforce the strength the Hasidic voting bloc has built over recent years, and shows that it can be both a reliable Republican electorate and maintain bipartisan relationships as needed.
Yossi Gestetner, head of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council, said turnout in Rockland County’s Hasidic neighborhoods surpassed 26,000. With 94% of the votes counted by Wednesday morning, Lawler had a margin of victory of about 40,000.
On Long Island
Jewish voters likely also played a pivotal role in a highly contested House seat in Nassau County, where they make up an estimated 14% of the electorate. Democrat Laura Gillen was poised to flip the seat that Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito won during the 2022 GOP wave across New York, with about 51%. D’Esposito faced backlash last month for a campaign mailer that used antisemitic imagery, depicting Jewish billionaire George Soros pouring cash over Gillen’s head.
In a neighboring district, Rep. Tom Suozzi, a pro-Israel Democrat, won a full term Tuesday night after flipping the seat formerly held by expelled Rep. George Santos in a special election earlier this year.
A friend in the speaker’s office?
It was unclear on Wednesday morning whether Democrats would take control of the House. If that happened, New York’s Jews would be poised to have significant influence under the likely speakership of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, now the minority leader.
Jeffries has established himself as a strong ally of Brooklyn’s Orthodox communities since his election in 2012. He has visited Israel multiple times and has a longstanding relationship with pro-Israel groups like AIPAC. Schumer, the Brooklyn Democrat who became the first-ever Jewish majority leader in 2021, is expected to remain the Democrats’ leader as they are relegated to the minority.
While the exit polls conducted by a consortium of news organizations estimated that 77% of Jewish voters nationwide had supported Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump, a Fox News exit poll said Trump had won 43% of the Jewish vote in New York.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a progressive pro-Israel Democrat from the Bronx, blamed “the anti-Israel fanaticism of the far left” for the erosion of Jewish support for Democrats.
New York and New Jersey
Rockland County will also send its first Hasidic representative to the state legislature. Aron Weider, a Rockland County legislator for the past decade, ran as a Democrat and unseated the incumbent Republican, Assemblyman John McGowan, in New York’s 97th District. Weider, a member of the Belz sect, got more than 23,000 votes, according to unofficial results.
In southern Brooklyn, Joey Cohen Saban, a Democrat, unseated first-term Assemblyman Michael Novakh, a Republican. Saban is Sephardic and formed a separate “Pro-Israel Party” ballot line to bolster his chances.
In neighboring New Jersey, Mordechai Burnstein squeaked by his opponent to become the first Orthodox Jew elected to the council in Jackson Township, winning by just 114 votes.
US Senate
In California, Rep. Adam Schiff, the Jewish Democrat who came to national prominence as the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment, won the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by the death last year of longtime Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
In Michigan, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is Jewish, won over Republican Mike Rogers for the open Senate seat. Slotkin will be the first Jewish woman to represent her state in the Senate.
In Nevada, Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat who touted her resume as the first synagogue president elected to the Senate, was trailing her Republican challenger, Sam Brown, by 1,200 votes.
And In Pennsylvania, former hedge fund CEO David McCormick — who embraced the support of a Christian nationalist who trafficked in antisemitism — was leading Democratic Sen. Bob Case in a race still too close to call.
Earlier this year, Casey and Jewish elected officials charged McCormick with profiting off his investment in Rumble, a video platform that has amplified far-right antisemitism and Holocaust denial. But McCormick’s possible victory wasn’t due to a surge in Jewish support. The Fox News exit poll showed that Jews — who make up 3% of voters in Pennsylvania — heavily favored Harris over Trump.
More than a minyan, including 3 Republicans
The next Congress will likely have fewer Jewish members — 23 in the House and nine in the Senate – than the current one, which has 35.
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who is retiring, will be replaced by fellow Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, one of two Black women elected to the Senate on Tuesday. Rep Susan Wild, a Jewish Democrat in Virginia, lost her reelection bid on Tuesday. A new edition to the Democratic conference is Eugene Vindman, a refugee from the former Soviet Union, leading in the race for the Virginia district that includes some Washington, D.C., suburbs.
The next Congress will have more Republican Jews than any since 2000. Texas State Rep. Craig Goldman easily won his race in north Texas to become the third Jewish House Republican, serving alongside Reps. David Kustoff of Tennessee and Max Miller of Ohio.
On the West Coast
Laura Friedman, an Assemblymember from Glendale, won the House seat held by Adam Schiff.
In Los Angeles, former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman won decisively in the race for Los Angeles County District Attorney, defeating first-term incumbent George Gascón. Hochman’s campaign centered on addressing the city’s rising crime rates and homelessness crisis.
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