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JTA reported yesterday on a new poll released by the Jewish Electorate Institute, a group led by Jewish Democrats, that showed a 17% drop in support for President Joe Biden from Jewish voters compared to a similar poll in May 2021. RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks responded to the poll:

President Biden’s numbers are down everywhere because his presidency is a resounding failure. From Afghanistan to Iran to China, Biden’s foreign policy has been simply awful. At home, the historically high inflation rate, rising crime, the destruction of America’s domestic energy capabilities, and the botched response to the Covid pandemic have badly hurt American families. The Biden presidency has been a disaster for this country, and thoughtful Jewish voters are coming to realize that.

The generic congressional ballot question in the Jewish Electorate Institute’s poll showed that Democrats are hemorrhaging Jewish voters - support for Democrats is down dramatically: -12% since last July.

These results are especially striking considering that the questions and question order in JEI’s poll are skewed to produce pro-Democrat results. When a reliably Democratic outfit publishes a poll showing such an embarrassing drop in Jewish support for Democrats, you can just imagine what an unbiased poll of the Jewish community would show.

This poll reinforces the ongoing trend of Jewish voters abandoning the Democrats and moving toward the GOP. We saw this very strongly in the Jewish vote for President Donald Trump in 2020, when, according to network exit polls, Trump won 30.5% of the Jewish vote nationally and an historic 42% of the Jewish vote in Florida, a key battleground state. We expect this trend to continue in the midterms, in the 2024 presidential election, and beyond.

Analysts are already warning Democrats that the midterm Senate elections will go badly for them. Progressive researcher Simon Bazelon writes:

…[I]t’s reasonable to assume that Democrats are looking at a vote share between 47% and 48.5% this cycle. This means Republicans will probably win the generic ballot by between three and six percent, and the median scenario is probably Republicans winning by around 4.5%. Since Joe Biden won by 4.5% in 2020, this would mean that the national environment has shifted 9 percentage points to the right.

Bazelon describes what that means for Senate Democrats up for election in 2022.

This would mean any Democrat in a state that Biden won by less than 9% will probably lose. That includes:

Mark Kelly in Arizona (Biden +0.3)

Raphael Warnock in Georgia (Biden +0.2)

Catherine Cortez-Masto in Nevada (Biden +2.4)
Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire (Biden +7.4)

Bazelon says it will only get worse in 2024, if certain assumptions hold:

Basically every Democratic senator in a state Biden won by less than 2% who is up in 2024 is likely to lose. That includes:

Jon Tester in Montana (Biden -16.3)

Joe Manchin in West Virginia (Biden -29.9)

Sherrod Brown in Ohio (Biden -8)

Bob Casey in Pennsylvania (Biden +1.2)

Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin (Biden +0.7)

Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona (Biden +0.3)

There’s a long way to go and no guarantees, but the shift away from Democrats nationally offers Republicans a great opportunity to retake the majorities in the Senate and House, and ultimately retake the White House, and put our country back on the right track.

You can be part of the RJC PAC’s efforts to help strong Republicans win in 2022 – Donate to the RJC PAC today!

Jim Geraghty at National Review looks at the latest inflation numbers:

We all knew today’s new inflation numbers were going to be really bad, and 8.5 percent inflation over the course of a year, the worst since 1981, is the sort of number that can end up defining a presidency.

Compared to a year ago, you’re paying 48 percent more today for gasoline; 35.3 percent more for a used car; 21.6 percent more for your natural-gas bill; 13.7 percent more for meat, fish, and eggs; 12.5 percent more for a new car; 11.1 percent more for electricity; 10 percent more for food at home; 7.7 percent more for transportation; 6.9 percent more for food away from home; 6.8 percent more for apparel; and 5 percent more for shelter.

Americans aren’t in a bad mood just because gas is much more expensive. They’re in a bad mood because just about everything is more expensive.

While the Consumer Price Index stands at 8.5 percent for the year, reflecting inflation in retail prices, wholesale prices have jumped to a record 11.2 percent annual increase. Tobias Burns at The Hill explains that the wholesale numbers reflect conditions in the supply chains and production pipelines. And he writes:

More than half of the overall wholesale increase in March is due to a 5.7 percent jump in prices for energy, with a 20-percent jump in the price of diesel fuel in particular.

Indices for gasoline, vegetables, jet fuel, iron and steel scrap metal and electric power also moved higher.

Let’s not forget where those high prices come from. To quote Geraghty again:

The additional spike in energy prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exacerbated existing problems, but it did not create the inflationary spiral that currently ails us. Inflation occurs when too much money is chasing too few goods. The federal government threw about $6 trillion into the national economy during the pandemic and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, [Joe] Biden’s approach to all problems is essentially to “just spend more money.”

Passover and the Constitution

William A. Galston writes at the Wall Street Journal about the relationship of tradition and order to liberty. He writes, “As the consensual framework that gives order to American liberty frays, we become less secure in the exercise of liberty.”

RJC staff have returned to their offices for in-person work. Contact information for our offices can be found on our web site. Please visit us online for the latest RJC news, to see details of upcoming events, and to donate to the RJC. Read past editions of this newsletter here.