Orthodox Jews in South Florida were an “important” factor in why Trump won the state, despite polls showing him running behind Biden, says a leading Israel lobbyist in the Democratic Party.
Post-election coverage has blamed Biden’s loss on the defection of Cuban-Americans. Cuban-Americans make up 6 percent of the Florida electorate. While Jews make up nearly the same figure, about 5 percent of the Florida electorate.
As many as 43 percent of those Florida Jews voted for President Trump, and 56 percent for Biden, according to AP election polling. That is far below the Jewish national percentage of about 75 percent for Biden.
Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, who is also a professional pollster, said on an American Jewish Committee webinar yesterday that Biden should have won Florida, based on his performance in Democratic strongholds in northern and central Florida.
“He didn’t win Florida because of South Florida,” Mellman said. Hillary Clinton won Miami Dade County by 29 points in 2016. Biden won it by only 7 points. “That is one of the most dramatic differences you will find in any major place, in any major county in this country.
“Why?… A lot of reasons. Part of it is the Cuban Latino community. The Latino Venezuelan community. I would also argue that chances are the orthodox Jewish community in Miami Dade county was an important piece of that. We’ve seen orthodox Jews as we’ve seen religious people from all denominations, religious Catholics, religious Protestants, religious Mormons become increasingly Republican over time. . . . We have a disproportionate share of those traditionally observant Jews in Miami Dade county.”
Trump won Florida by 51.2 percent to Biden’s 47.9 percent– 414,000 votes.
Norm Coleman, an Israel lobbyist on the Republican side, responded that Trump would have won in Israel if not the U.S.
“It’s undeniable that Israel has not had a stronger friend in the White House than Donald J Trump. If he was running for president of Israel, I think he’d win in a walk.”
Mellman said that 75 percent of American Jews overall voted for Biden because the orthodox make up only 10-12 percent of the American Jewish community, and most Jews care about Israel but not to the exclusion of other issues.
Jews see both parties as being pro Israel and both presidential candidates as being pro Israel, Mellman said. “So if you’ve got that taken care of, if you’ve met that [pro-Israel] threshhold,” then American Jews vote on the issue of “pluralism. . .what makes American congenial for us, what makes it possible for our community to succeed in this country.”
He said that Biden would not return to the Iran deal that President Obama negotiated, but would use “pressure” and “sanctions” to seek a “stronger, better, longer” deal with Iran.
“I think we’re going to see a desire on the part of the Biden administration to get a new and different and better diplomatic agreement with Iran. They may or may not be able to achieve that,” Mellman said.
“Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon today than the day Donald Trump took office. We need an agreement that’s going to work, and I think the Biden team and the vice president himself are deeply commited to achieving an agreement that will work. That means an agreement that is stronger, that is better, that is longer lasting than the deal that was achieved during the Obama administration. Obviously it’s going to take pressure, it’s going to take sanctions to make that happen on the Iranian side.”
When Norm Coleman said that the Democratic Party has been captured by voices critical of Israel, Mellman pushed back. He bragged of defeating even liberal Zionists who supported citing the occupation in the Democratic platform, and said that progressive Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are a fringe in the party.
“There is no question there is a battle within the Democratic Party,” Mellman said. “The anti-Israel forces are losing that battle. It is not permanently won.” But he insisted that Tlaib, Omar and Ocasio-Cortez are not “influential” because the Democratic Party votes 95 percent in favor of Israel on such issues as condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (for basic human rights for Palestinians) and as affirming that the huge American aid package to Israel will continue regardless of its expansion through occupied territories. “You can’t be influential if you are losing 95 percent of other Democrats. That is the definition of not being influential. “
Mellman conceded that the Israel-critical contingent in Congress will grow by “a couple” of members in the next Congress.
I’m only posting this here because there is no way to comment on the original “Keith Ellison under pressure to drop out of Yitzhak Rabin event” post of October 16th. I felt that his actual speech, a four minute video, should be included to let people judge his statement (rather than his participation) on its own merits.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTnodzJJXo4
Great title to the article! Except then the article brings no proof of this.
Using the quote mentioned in the article for this title, it could also have been “Biden loses Florida because of Religious Mormons”.
Of course since Cubans and Jews in Florida make up similar percentages we are supposed to believe they acted the same at the ballot box. Wait what percentage of Jews in Florida are actually orthodox?
About 10% and even of those less then 60 are republican so actually we are talking about .3-.4% compared to the 6% who are Cuban and tend to be mostly republican.
So what we have here is either sensationalism or outright pandering to those elements in society who want to paint orthodox Jews as having some mysterious power or control.
Biden lost Florida because a majority didn’t agree with his policies. Or maybe it was those pesky Mormons.