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Executive Summary for Understanding the Jewish Vote

American Jews traditionally have played a significant role in the U.S. political process, as donors, campaign staff and volunteers, candidates, and, especially, as voters. A majority of Jewish voters have supported the Democratic nominee in all but one presidential election since 1928.

Nonetheless, the prospect of losing the Jewish vote has resulted in important achievements on matters of Jewish concern, including the first-ever endorsement of Zionism by both major political parties, in 1944, and the shipment of previously-stalled fighter jets to Israel, in 1968.

In more recent years, American support for Israel has been anchored both in strategic considerations and electoral realities. No presidential candidate can ignore the fact that most Jews reside in states that potentially are significant in presidential elections, or the fact that the rate of Jewish voter participation is considerably higher than that of the general public.

In six presidential contests in the past century, the final results were so close, and the margin of victory was so narrow in major states with large Jewish populations, that even a modest shift in Jewish votes could have altered the outcome. The Jewish vote also has proved decisive in key congressional, mayoral and other races around the country.

Today more than ever, the Jewish vote is a force to be reckoned with in American politics.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Rafael Medoff, a historian of American Jewry, is the author of more than twenty books, and hundreds of essays, on Jewish history, Zionism, and the Holocaust, including the award-winning textbook, Jewish Americans and Political Participation. He has taught at Ohio State University, Purchase College of the State University of New York, Yeshiva University, and elsewhere, and served as associate editor of the scholarly journal American Jewish History.