The Outsized Effect of the Israeli-Hamas War on Local Politics
Although there exists no public comment that I need retract (I think), I have underestimated the absurd impact of the Israeli-Hamas War in the world at large in ways that defy imagining.
For instance, a recent, pre-debate presidential poll for New Jersey had Trump up by 1%. This poll is likely an outlier, conducted by an unproven agency. Yet even a March poll (Emerson) only had Biden up by 5 to 7 percentage points. In four prior elections, the Democrats soundly won by roughly 16 +/- 2%. If this shift rightward holds up, it would constitute a shift double the national trend.
Even more significant is the rightward shift in New York state, from the mid-20s% to around 7.5% pre-debate, both in favor of Biden.
There was, however, a byelection within the Toronto city core last week. Toronto Proper, like all cosmopolitan centers, has been a Liberal electoral fortress for well over a decade. Yet, the riding was stunningly won by the Conservatives, albeit barely. There was a rightward gap shift of over 25%.
As can be surmised, all three constituencies have outsized Jewish populations, constituting 6.8% in New Jersey, 9.1% in New York, and 11% in Toronto—St. Paul's. Voting participation in Canadian by-elections is not normally high, around half of regular elections. (Voting participation was 50% higher than normal this time.) It is conjectured that a motivated Jewish vote constituted towards 20% of actual votes in this byelection. The gap shift rightward roughly correlates with the percentage of Jews in each locale.
The Election Night poll (2020), conducted by GBAO Strategies and commissioned by the pro-Israel, pro-peace advocacy group J Street, found that Jewish voters supported Biden over Trump 77-21, a 56-point margin that significantly surpassed Hillary Clinton’s +45 point advantage with the Jewish community in 2016.
Diaspora Jews are, as a group, notoriously positioned on the bleeding Progressive edge of the political continuum (70%+ Democratic). Yet, Canadian Jews have favor Conservatives over Liberals by high single digit percentages this year. Based upon NY and NJ polls, this outsized rightward shift is also occurring in the United States at the present time.
According to recent polling, the decline in Jewish support for Biden, pre-debate, has slipped by a mere 10 to 15 percentage points since the 2020 election.
I do not believe this modest decline narrative. Considering the almost homogenous cultural dispositions of Diaspora Jews in general, which is openly and aggressively anti-Trump, I suspect that there exists many a shy Jewish voter, publicly declaring one way, voting another, especially when engaging with a left-leaning Jewish polling agency. No better explanation can be proffered for the outsized rightward anomalies in NY and NJ.
While this palpable rightward shift is partly ideological, from the radical progressive lunacy towards Bill Maher liberalism, I contend that this support is largely strategic, mercenary, and ultimately temporary.
Yet, there is nothing like a bout of antisemitism to keep Jews huddled together. Indeed, it may ironically be these rinse and repeat bouts of antisemitism which have kept Diaspora Jews from cultural and ethnic entropy through the millennia.
The Lord is in His holy temple.
It is the impact of this singular byelection upset upon the body politic which defies envisioning. Having amassed a large electoral lead, just in the last year, the Conservatives would likely win the next election. However, the hold that Trudeau had over his own riding had hitherto been rock solid. Now, just like Biden in America and Macron in France, Trudeau is suddenly fighting for survival as leader in his own party. One common theme between them, hubris.
An outsized Jewish vote, protesting against Trudeau’s position in the Israeli-Hamas war and his administration’s limp-wristed response to an antisemitism (which had hitherto been largely subterranean), has provoked and become catalyst of a greater political tumult.