Every election year, somebody tells us that the Jewish vote could decide the election.

I have usually been skeptical.

American Jews have a tendency, perhaps an understandable one, to overestimate our centrality to American political life. We are, after all, only a little more than 2 percent of the American population. Millions of Americans are not sitting around waiting to see how the Jews of Westchester, Boca Raton or suburban Detroit vote before deciding the fate of the Republic.

But 2026 may be different. Not because there are suddenly more Jews.

Because American politics has become so closely divided that a relatively small group of voters can exercise influence far beyond its size if three things are true: they vote in large numbers, they are geographically concentrated, and they live in places where elections are close.

American Jews check all three boxes. And with control of the House potentially turning on only a handful of seats, that matters. The real question is therefore not whether 2 percent of the American population can determine a national election.

It is whether Jewish voters can influence three or four congressional districts. That is a much more plausible proposition.

The Jewish vote has leverage

Political power is not simply about population. It is population multiplied by turnout, geographic concentration and the closeness of the race. American Jews vote at unusually high rates. They are also heavily concentrated in places like New York, South Florida, Pennsylvania and metropolitan Detroit.

Put a high-turnout Jewish population into a congressional district decided by several thousand votes and suddenly a supposedly tiny constituency becomes politically significant.

That is the Jewish political multiplier.

And despite everything we have heard since October 7, American Jews remain overwhelmingly Democratic. That deserves some attention because the political discomfort inside the Jewish community is very real.

As a Democrat and as someone living in Israel, I understand it.

I have been deeply disturbed by what I have heard and seen from the progressive left: criticism of Israeli governments slipping into questioning Israel’s legitimacy, Jewish students facing hostility that would never be tolerated if directed at almost any other minority, and Zionism increasingly treated by activists as something for which Jews should apologize.

I know many lifelong Jewish Democrats who feel less comfortable in parts of the coalition they helped build. But discomfort is not the same thing as political realignment.

Recent polling continues to show roughly two-thirds of Jewish voters supporting Democrats in congressional elections. That is not a Jewish stampede toward the Republican Party that some would lead you to believe is happening in this election cycle.

It is something much more complicated.

American Jews are Americans

One of the things I think we misunderstand here in Israel is the assumption that American Jews vote primarily on Israel. They don’t.

Israel matters deeply. But American Jews are not Israelis-by-proxy. They vote on healthcare, abortion rights, democratic institutions, the economy,........

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