One of the unreported news items this cycle is how the Democrats are bleeding Jewish voters, and I think this will become very apparent in New York, where the party’s insane social liberalism is at odds with the growing clientelle of ultra-orthodox jews.
Like with Hispanics across flyover country, and Asians in California, the Republicans have an opportunity here to start taking a sledgehammer to the ‘rainbow coalition’ that has proved so formidable.
The racist, sexist garbage is obviously losing mileage (just as Udall), so we might see a more ‘idea-oriented’ electorate in 2016. On ideas, Democraps crash and burn.
I'm not that optimistic.
In 2008 American Jews supported Obama by 78%.
In 2012, they supported Obama by 70%.
Yesterday, I read a poll from a Jewish organization that said just 65% of Jewish voters voted for a Democrat Congressional candidate.
I think that 65% is misleading.
Most American Jews live in states and Congressional Districts where Democrats win easily.
That fact can reduce voter turn out in a non-presidential election like 2014.
In 2016, I think Jewish support for Democrats will go right back to the 70%-80% range where it has been for decades.
I think Conservative optimism about Orthodox Jews is also incorrect.
In America, Orthodox Jews use welfare at twice the rate of other white Americans, and the median family income for Orthodox Jews is below the average for other white Americans.
A majority of Orthodox Jews will continue to vote Republican, but it is not a huge majority, and it is certainly not enough to offset the huge majority of secular Jews who vote against Republicans.
One other Republican-leaning Jewish subgroup that fails to get much attention are the Russian (and Iron Curtain) Jewish immigrants who arrived here from about 1980 on, and their families. They were victims of Communist repression and are thus drawn to a robust US defense ideology and are repelled by leftist government overreach domestically.
Still another such subgroup are American Jews abroad in Israel, who are very knowledgeable about Obama's biases in the Middle East.
BTW, it is extremely difficult logistically to do accurate polling on how the entire American Jewish community voted in a specific election. One would have to think that the Jewish Republican vote is undersampled by polls (the vast majority of which are done by left-leaning organizations) because of aversions to and difficulties by the poll takers in interacting with orthodox and Russian Jews due to cultural and language differences. You can bet as well that American Jews abroad in Israel will not be polled at all because of expense.
In addition, these pollsters generally have a pro-'Rat bias from the get-go which influences their methods.
Big problem in Florida, though.
Rick Scott won the governership, had a Hispanic running mate, but apparently his share of the Hispanic vote went from 50% in 2010 to 38% in 2014.
Florida Hispanics are either changing—importing liberals and/or the Republicans in Florida are doing a lousy job reaching out to them.
Either way, it needs to be fixed.