Ignore the fictitious exit polls.
In September, Donald Trump told a gathering of the Israel-American Council: “If I don’t win this election — and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens — because if 40%, I mean 60%, of the people are voting for the enemy — Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years.”
Well, a lot of Jewish people voted for Trump and that had a lot to do with him winning.
Ignore the self-serving exit polls from groups like J Street or the NBC News poll that reported 71 and 79% of Jews voted for Harris over Trump. Exit polls try to account for self-selection (lots of people will ignore this) or the fact that they are only taken at given points in time, but they can’t go beyond providing a snapshot as opposed to a complete portrait. Moreover, they can’t really account for mail-in and early voting.
A cursory look at the key swing districts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania showed that the swing districts that shifted toward Trump and allowed him to win the electoral votes of those respective states also had the highest concentration of Jewish voters.
Our President-Elect (Again!)
Georgia:
Of Georgia’s 14 congressional districts, the top five by Jewish population account for about 68% of the state’s total Jewish electorate (~104,000). All five districts are located within the Atlanta metropolitan area. In particular, suburban Atlanta counties with the biggest chunk of Jewish votes, including DeKalb County, Claiborne and Pauling counties, increased their support for Trump by an average of 3%.
Pennsylvania:
The majority (~78%) of Jewish adults in Pennsylvania reside in eight congressional districts. All, except for PA-18, are in the eastern region of the state known as the Delaware Valley.
Harris beat President Trump in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania but she earned a shocking 11,300 fewer votes than President Biden in 2020. Trump, meanwhile, won some 8,000 more votes than he did in the county in 2020, en route to securing Pennsylvania and his second term in the White House.
Bucks County went for Trump. It was the first time the heavily Jewish area had given a majority of its vote to a Republican in 35 years.
Michigan:
The majority (~77%) of Jewish adults in Michigan reside in congressional districts including the metropolitan areas around Detroit, Ann Arbor and Lansing. In Democratic Oakland County, with the largest concentration of Jewish votes, Trump’s vote total increased. Some, like heavily Jewish Bloomfield Hills, backed Trump after favoring Biden in 2020.
Wisconsin:
Over half of Jewish adults in Wisconsin (~57%) vote in just two of the state’s congressional districts spanning the metropolitan and suburban areas of Milwaukee and Madison. Two-thirds (66%) of the Wisconsin Jewish electorate identifies with or leans Democrat. Yet these areas, including Milwaukee and Madison, with the largest number of Jewish votes, shifted toward Trump by an average of 3%.
Finally, increased Jewish support for Trump in non-swing states also surged, contributing to his victory in the popular vote as well as the Electoral College.
Florida:
“On Tuesday, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the county in 36 years. The last Republican to win Miami-Dade was George H.W. Bush in 1988.”
Miami-Dade County went for Trump in this election, the first time a Republican has won that area since 1988. In 2020, President Joe Biden got 617,864 votes or 53.4% of the total in Miami-Dade County. Trump got 532,833 for 46.1%. In 2024, Trump brought in 55.2% of the county votes while Kamala Harris logged 43.71%.
New Jersey:
Trump’s share of the vote in areas with the largest share of Jewish voters in New Jersey surged significantly. The 7th congressional district (my district), which includes Union County, has 30,000 Jewish voters. Union County increased its support for Trump by 12%. Similarly, Bergen County, with over 100,000 Jews, boosted its support for Trump by 13%. As a result, Trump lost to Harris by only 5% of the vote.
New York
According to Politico, with 7.9 million votes in, Trump lost New York state with ’4% to Harris’ 56%. However, that margin marked a 12 point improvement from his losing margin to President Joe Biden four years ago. He even narrowed the gap in New York City, netting 30% of the vote, an improvement of 7 points over 2020.
The New York Post reported that Vice President Kamala Harris received 55% of the Empire State’s Jewish vote, a drastic decrease from the 69% President Biden took home in his winning bid for the highest office four years ago.
So, you might ask, what about California? Los Angeles County, with the most Jewish votes of any county in the U.S., boosted its support for Trump from 26% to 34% of the vote.
Groucho Marx famously said, “Who do you believe? Me or your eyes?” Every key swing district with a concentration of Jews moved toward Trump and helped him win that state’s electoral votes. Even states or areas that have been strongly Democratic for decades, such as New York City, New Jersey, Miami-Dade, and even Los Angeles, shifted to Trump by double digits.
For now, at least, the J Street dream of cutting military aid to Israel and forcing it to enter counterproductive ceasefires with an evil Islamic nexus of death has faded because a significant percentage of the Jewish vote shifted to Trump.
He asked for our support to defend Israel and bring the hammer down on colleges harboring anti-Jewish faculty. We delivered and Donald Trump will be our 47th president thanks to the support. Those are the facts. Ignore the ridiculous and deceitful fiction that more Jews voted for a Democrat in 2024.
