WSJ: Democrats Are Losing the Jewish Vote (excerpt)

October 20, 2026

By Zach Kessel, Wall Street Journal, Free Expression
Monday October 19, 2026

...Three years after Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitism is clearly on the rise. Anti-Zionist policies are ascendant in the Democratic Party. American Jews may finally be making the long, hard walk from the political left to the political right.

...Sam Markstein of the Republican Jewish Coalition told me that a focus on national numbers belies the trend: “Look at places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Florida and Ohio, the states that really matter in presidential elections,” he said. “Republicans are getting almost to parity with the Democrats, which would’ve been unheard of just a few decades ago.”

Mr. Markstein argued that groups like Ms. Soifer’s make the mistake of relying on broad national polling numbers. “You have these Jewish communal organizations on the Democratic side . . . who will scream into the wind that the Jewish vote hasn’t moved, it’ll never move, it’s been the same forever.” Those claims, he said, are generally based on exit polls. “They do that every cycle, and then I have to point out that the raw vote total data doesn’t care about your feelings.”

By that, Mr. Markstein meant the totals show an increase in Jewish votes for Republicans. In 2024, for instance, Donald Trump won every New York City precinct where Jews made up 50% or more of the population, according to RJC data Mr. Markstein shared. There are plenty of Haredi Jews in those precincts, but not in Michigan, he said, where “places like West Bloomfield and Bloomfield Hills and Southfield in Oakland County” moved about 10 points toward Mr. Trump between 2020 and 2024.

A majority of American Jews will almost certainly vote for Democrats in 2026. But if trends hold, the Democratic Party will no longer be able to rely on automatic Jewish support. All Republicans need to do is keep antisemitic kooks out of their own coalition and avoid screwing it up.

 

Published on the Wall Street Journal website, October 19, 2026.